The Inspiring Girls and Grassroots Networks for Inclusive and Transformative Education (IGNITE), an NGO, says the project aims to reach eight million out-of-school girls in Nigeria.

Prof. Oluwafunmilayo Para-Mallam, Principal Investigator of IGNITE, disclosed this on Saturday during a meeting with key stakeholders involved in a research project to validate the methodology of the research proposal in Jos.

Para-Mallam said Nigeria had the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, 60 per cent of them girls.

“Nigeria has 26.7 million girls aged 10 to 19, but a shocking eight million have never set foot in a classroom,” she noted.

The Don said IGNITE, therefore, intended to find out the reason for the occurrence using six states in the pilot project.

She said the project would study cities and remote villages to understand challenges like early marriage or families prioritising boys’ schooling.

She listed the states, picked from the country’s six geo-political zones as; Plateau, Zamfara, Adamawa, Osun, Rivers, and Enugu.

Para-Mallam explained that the project would use feminist partnership principles to co-create transformative interventions to increase adolescent girls’ access to education and empower them to promote gender equality agendas.

“The researchers and the stakeholders co-create the change together, come up with ideas, and deliberate on them.

“Government cannot do it alone, and that is why we have this multi-stakeholder platform,” she said.

She emphasised that the project would bring together teachers, parents, activists, the media, policymakers, and young girls, for the research to craft practical tools for tackling issues like poverty and cultural biases blocking girls’ education.

She added that the initiative would break down barriers, keeping millions of Nigerian girls from attending school, focusing on grassroots action and smarter policies.

Some stakeholders who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) commended the organisers for the project.

Mrs. Olivia Dazyam, Plateau Chairperson for Gender and Equal Opportunity Commission, described it as phenomenal,adding that the research was a policy that would help bring about social change.

Hajiya Fatima Suleiman, another participant, said the research proposal was thoroughly done, saying it focused on policies that would impact people.

Mr. Gad Peter from CLEEN Foundation described the project as remarkable, noting that its inclusion of stakeholders in co-creation and deliberation gave it an edge to succeed.