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Nigeria gets new $98m Islamic bank loan for education

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The Board of Executive Directors of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has approved a $98 million loan to promote multilingual education in Nigeria.

Mr David Apeh, Head of Public Relations and Protocol at the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) made this known in a statement published in Abuja on Wednesday.

He added that the project’s goal was to help improve Nigeria’s socioeconomic situation, provide inclusive education, and encourage bilingual education.

Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, and Osun are the nine states that would profit from the initiative, according to him.

Apeh added that the major components of the project were to create access to basic education, improve quality and enhance the management capacity of school administrators.

READ ALSO: Nigerian govt enters N186m agreement with Islamic Bank for hajj, textile industry

He disclosed that in all, 30 bilingual education boarding schools are to be constructed in the nine states, which would help boost enrolment and reduce the Out-of-School-Children (OOSC) syndrome as well as expose learners to the knowledge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

“Another important feature of this project is the Awqaf and Istisnaa embedded to provide real estate business for sustainable income for the programme.

“The Project is being coordinated at the National level by Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), National Coordinating Unit (NCU) with supervision by the Federal Ministry of Education and Federal Ministry of Finance,” he said.

The UBEC spokesperson indicated that the National Coordinating Unit has already engaged consultants to design, review and supervise the civil works of the projects and has also engaged the services of a monitoring and evaluation consultant.

He further noted that the office furniture and equipment have been procured for the nine participating states, adding the process of the civil work has just commenced.

He said a stakeholders meeting was organized recently to brief the states on the level of the project implementation with the nine states represented by their Commissioners of Finance, SUBEB Chairman, Heads of Project Management Units (PMUs) and Tsangaya Arabic and Islamic Education Agencies.

The meeting, which was chaired by the Executive Secretary, UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary (Technical), Prof. Bala Zakari, also had in attendance, members of UBEC management as well as the representatives of the Federal Ministries of Education, Finance and IsDB.

Bobboyi in his remark informed the state governments that the project was a loan that has to be repaid hence, the need to ensure its effective implementation and prudent management.

The states expressed their readiness to take ownership of the projects after completion while the participants were expected to brief their respective state governors.

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