Islamic Development Bank offers loan of $98m to help fund education in northern Nigeria

ORGANISATION of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) finance house the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has approved the disbursement of $98m to Nigerian in the form of loans to the education sector to support a plan to help eradicate illiteracy.

Nigeria is currently wracked by insecurity brought about by the lack of opportunity for youths in the north of the country where about 10.3m pupils are out of school. When added to the fact that there are 6m illegal weapons in Nigeria and the total number of unemployed is said to be 22m, it is no surprise that Nigeria has earned the unwelcome tag of poverty capital of the world.

Founded in 1973 by the IOC finance ministers with the support of the King of Saudi Arabia, the IDB began its activities on 3 April 1975. To date, the bank has supported over 13,000 students, with funding to the tune of $133.7m and 90% of the graduates it has produced have returned to their respective countries.

With Nigeria's 19 northern states in particular requiring assistance in the field of education, the IDB's board of directors has approved a multi-year $98m financial facility programme for the promotion of bilingual education in Nigeria. David Apeh, a spokesman for Nigeria's Universal Basic Education Commission (Ubec), said that the programme was for the period of 2012 to 2015.

He added that he project is aimed at contributing to the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of Nigeria, ensuring inclusive education and promoting bilingual education. States earmarked to benefit from the programme include Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and Osun.

According to Ubec, the major component of the project is to create access to basic education, improve quality and enhance the management capacity of school administrators. Ubec added that 30 bilingual education boarding schools would be constructed in the benefiting states to boost enrolment and reduce the out-of-school-children syndrome among other things.

Mr Apeh said that the project is being coordinated at the federal level by Ubec's national coordinating unit with supervision from the Federal Ministry of Education and the Federal Ministry of Finance. Ubec 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.

Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the Ubec executive secretary, said that the project was a loan and all must be done to ensure effective implementation and prudent management of the project. Historically, the IDB has always taken pride in the fact that its scholarship programmes promote excellence in science within OIC member countries and amongst Muslim communities in non-member countries.