The Ekiti State Government has distributed 2,600 laptops to 100 secondary schools to aid learning and develop skills in the state.
The distribution was done in Ado-Ekiti under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment Project (AGILE), a World Bank scheme, on Tuesday, April 11.
Speaking at the event, the wife of the governor, Dr Olayemi Oyebanji, said the AGILE programme would complement the government’s free education programme.
“The AGILE project is designed to respond to the challenges and constraints adolescent girls faced in accessing and completing secondary school education.
“I am glad that the project is supporting the state’s efforts at enhancing academic, digital and life skills of our adolescents.
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“It gives fillip to government’s determination to groom a mass of adequately equipped youths who are global-ready,” Oyebanji said.
She assured that 900 laptops would be distributed to 35 schools, while 65 other schools would get 1,600 laptops in the next two months.
The governor’s wife added that the scheme allocated $25 million to Ekiti State to provide laptop computers, renovate schools, and provide instructional materials to empower mainly adolescent girls to keep them comfortably in school.
In her remarks, the deputy governor of Ekiti State, Monisade Afuye, commended the state government for partnering with the World Bank for the full implementation of AGILE scheme to boost girl-child’s access to education.
Afuye said the scheme would help to stem spiralling teenage pregnancies, early marriages and school dropout figures – the cankerworms destroying society and creating gender imbalance.
She lamented that thousands of girls dropped out of school because of poverty, saying AGILE is a veritable opportunity for girls of poor backgrounds to climb the ladder of education without encumbrances.
The deputy governor stressed that the AGILE scheme would catapult e-learning to higher pedestal for Ekiti students to compete with their counterparts elsewhere.
On his part, the Chairman of Ekiti House of Assembly Committee on Education, Bode Adeoye, pledged the Legislature’s readiness to initiate legislation to institutionalise the programme for sustainability.
“As an ally to the Executive arm of government, we shall support this project.
“Education is the main industry in our dear state, so promoting girl-child education is one priority we should all support.
“Women are no longer taking the backseat in Ekiti. We know that AGILE will also help in widening the girl-child’s access to education,” Adeoye said.
The AGILE coordinator in the state, Yewande Adesua, who stressed the importance of the scheme, appreciated the state government for taking up the challenge.
