Good News: World Bank Budgets $125m To Develop Teachers In Nigerian

BEVERLY HILLS, AUGUST 11, (THEWILL) – The World Bank has set aside a $125 million fund for education support to motivate and attract teachers to the rural areas to enhance teacher development in Nigeria.

This was disclosed by Adebayo Solomon, a World Bank education specialist, in an interview with NAN in Abuja on Thursday.

He explained that the project would be implemented in such a way that the bank would give additional money to teachers willing to teach in rural communities, depending on the area.

Solomon revealed that the project was currently ongoing in Ekiti, Anambra and Bauchi and would span five years.

He revealed that the ability of a state to articulate plans on moving education forward was used as a criterion in selecting the three states and the willingness to pay the counterpart fund adding that there were plans to scale up the project, even in the North-East, depending on the willingness of states to access support from the bank.

“Currently we are implementing several projects that are targeted at enhancing teachers; one of such is happening in three states of Ekiti, Anambra and Bauchi,” Solomon said.

“And the focus is to motivate and give incentives to teachers to enable them to go to rural communities and teach. The project will cost the bank $125 million for three states for five years.”

“The project is supported by the World Bank but implemented by the states in collaboration with the state ministry of education and state universal basic education boards.

“The states must be able to articulate what they want to do to move education to the next level to the satisfaction of the bank and also the commitment of states to give resource to fund education projects.”

Story by David Oputah