Ekiti State government through the ministry of education, science and technology has urged stakeholders across the 203 schools in the state to take ownership of the world bank assisted grants towards the successful implementation of the projects.
The state alongside other six other Northern states were selected to benefit from the School Improvement Grants(SIG) under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project of the World bank.
The project coordinator, Mrs Oluwayemi Alokan spoke during training on environmental and social safeguards with grievances redress mechanism and gender-based violence for principals and officials of various school board management committees (SBMC) held across the three senatorial districts of the state.
Alokan explained that the projects which will involve the renovation of schools in the state and the provision of instructional materials and others would only be successful through the support and cooperation of the stakeholders, calling on them to take ownership.
She stated that the training was organised to expose the stakeholders to environmental and social practices and help in reducing risks at the various schools for the overall interest of the students.
According to her, the project when completed would in no small measure improve the level of enrolment and as well guarantee quality education, especially that of the girl child in the state.
Alokan said, “ we put the training together in the three senatorial districts to sensitize our SBMC because they will play a very critical role in carrying out the implementation of this project. We brought them together to have the knowledge of ESMP practice, that is Enviromental Social Management practice of the project.
“Also, the training is on how to know the best practices in this area and of course the risk that can happen at the project site. In Ekiti state, we are doing renovation and we don’t want any accidents in our various sites.
“The project has come to stay due to the giant strides of our governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi. If not because of his support we will not be part of the seven states selected in Nigeria to benefit from the World bank assisted programme. Let me tell you that this project will go a long way to improve enrolment in Ekiti because it has a series of components they will invest in the state.
A consultant in Environmental Social Safeguards(ESSG) Philemon Benjamin in his lecture reiterated the need for the stakeholders to be proactive and deliberate in their actions during the course of the projects so as to protect the health and lives of the students in their respective schools.
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