Nigeria

The Girls' Education Challenge (GEC) had two projects in Nigeria which improved learning opportunities and outcomes for 225,193 of the country's marginalised girls. 

Projects

Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises (ENGINE) - implementation completed in October 2020

The ENGINE project supported 21,162 girls and was implemented by Mercy Corps Nigeria.

The project targeted girls that were marginalised due to barriers such as a lack of access to quality education due to their location or insecurity and their social and/or economic status. The project found that poverty was the main driver of marginalisation from education. Other barriers to learning were poor teaching quality, a lack of school governance and community support for education and poor school facilities such as no drinking water and poor sanitation facilities.

The project worked with communities and the public and private sectors. It worked with government schools to improve the quality of teaching and to provide additional literacy and numeracy support to girls. Out-of-school girls were given educational opportunities through flexible learning with tailored modules in government centres or ENGINE learning spaces. ENGINE also worked with government centres to provide better access to childcare. Girls were equipped with life skills, asset-building skills and income-generation skills. They were supported to set up their own micro-businesses, through help to obtain government ID registration and bank accounts, enabling access to capital.

Fitila Project - implementation completed in December 2020

The Discovery Project supported 204,031 girls in Nigeria and was implemented by Impact(Ed) International (also working in Ghana and Kenya).

Girls in all three countries face barriers to learning and transition, especially as they reach adolescence and look to transition from primary to - and through - junior secondary school. Poverty is the key driver of educational marginalisation, affecting girls’ attendance at school, their ability to fully participate in lessons and in extracurricular activities, and their ability to concentrate during their lessons. In addition, poor school infrastructure and the lack of qualified teachers and female teachers pose barriers to learning across the three countries. Concerns about distance and safe travel to school, as well as the need for girls to carry out household chores and support their household economically, often resulted in girls not attending school.

The project aimed to increase girls’ learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy, their self-esteem and self-efficacy, and their successful completion of the primary cycle and transition into junior secondary school. This was done through the provision of educational content and technological solutions alongside teacher professional development to primary schools. Remedial classes were established to support academic learning and Girls’ and Boys’ Clubs were established to build life skills. Core to the project approach was working closely alongside communities and school leaders to address the barriers to girls’ learning.