Source: AUN News
The Leveraging Education Assistance Resources in Nigeria (LEARN) to Read activity, which aims to promote early grade reading in the nation over five years, was introduced by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on August 30. Millions of Nigerian children will benefit from this $48.8 million U.S. Mission Nigeria investment in education, which will also help create flourishing, prosperous communities across the country.
More than 3.5 million students in 5,900 schools will have improved reading results thanks to LEARN to Read, and more than 35,000 teachers, principals, and school support staff will be better able to assist early grade reading in roughly 6,000 schools.
At the launch, Supervisory Program Office Director USAID/Nigeria, Stephen Menard, said, “The new USAID activity will ensure that school-age children and youth in Nigeria can gain fundamental skills, such as literacy and numeracy, safely while building critical social and emotional skills to progress to higher levels of education, training, and employment.”
At the introduction, Minister of State for Education Goodluck Nana Oprah said, “The Federal Ministry of Education honours the work of USAID in the previous 20 years to enhance literacy in Nigeria through its creative programmes.” LEARN to Read will build on its strong partnership with the Ministry of Education, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, and language/curriculum experts to strengthen mother tongue-based instruction in the early grades.
The education programme of USAID prioritises the population segments that are most at risk while assisting the Nigerian government in providing high-quality education. The improvement of primary education, the development of teacher capacity, and the increase of the minimum academic standards for the reading curriculum are significant areas of concentration.
The LEARN to Read initiative will build on the successes of the recently finished USAID-funded Northern Education Initiative (NEI Plus), which helped more than a million kids in the states of Bauchi and Sokoto achieve better reading outcomes. In both states, which have been designated as Legacy states, LEARN to Read will improve and expand best practices for teaching early grade reading. For the teaching and learning of early grade reading in the United States, it will make more use of public and private resources.
As part of USAID’s mission to support education and reach millions more children with lifelong skills across Nigeria, LEARN to Read will also provide technical assistance to two additional states (designated as Launching states), at least another two states (designated as On-demand states), and the two Legacy states. These initiatives will aid in creating a new generation of leaders capable of assisting Nigeria in overcoming its upcoming development problems.
Analysis by: Advocacy Unified Network
