The African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development (CentreLSD) has said that about 20 million secondary school girls may be out of school at the end of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).

Addressing journalists yesterday in Yola on the community-led collective action for girl’s education, the Senior Programmes Officer of CentreLSD, Mr. Lawal Amodu, said that poor hygiene in schools was a major threat to girls’ education during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

“The current schools safety realities as it relates to the COVID-19 regulations require urgent interventions, as clean water, toilets and hygiene, which are essential components of the regulations, are grossly lacking. In Nigeria, limited access to water, sanitation and hygiene is a major barrier preventing girls from learning,” he stated.

According to Amodu, Malala Fund’s research discovered that schools lack washrooms and poor conditions forced girls to leave school grounds to attend to their sanitary needs. This, he pointed out, increases the likelihood of the girls dropping out of school.

To address the problems of hygiene and hidden charges by school authorities, the centre has trained 275 key education stakeholders, who will also train other members in the community on the importance of girls’ education in society.

He stated that the advocacy yielded fruits, as over 960 girls that dropped out of school had been re-enrolled in some of the communities in the three local councils of Numan in southern Adamawa, Song in central Adamawa and Maiha in northern Adamawa.

Amodu, who lamented the lack of quality teachers in Adamawa schools, urged the government to expedite action on the recruitment of qualified teachers and ensure full implementation of the free education programme across the state.