DO Take Action, in partnership with the Malala Fund, has launched a three-year initiative aimed at strengthening the implementation of Kano State’s education re-entry policy for girls who have dropped out of school.
The initiative, known as REED (Reclaiming Education), seeks to support married girls, young mothers, pregnant adolescents and other girls at risk of dropping out to return to school, remain in education and successfully transition from Junior Secondary School (JSS) to Senior Secondary School (SSS).
Speaking during a high-level stakeholder meeting in Kano on Thursday, the Permanent Secretary of the Kano State Ministry of Education, Bashir Baffa Muhammad, said the workshop was organised to establish and demonstrate practical guidelines for implementing the state’s re-entry policy.
“The rationale behind this workshop is to define and demonstrate the re-entry guidelines for adolescent women who have dropped out of school,” he said.
He added that the meeting was also intended to ensure that the policy already adopted by the state translates into concrete action.
“We are here to define and see that what is signed is implemented,” the Permanent Secretary said.
Muhammad urged participants to engage meaningfully in developing pathways for girls who have dropped out to return to education.
“Every woman or every girl deserves a better education,” he said.
According to the organisers, REED will initially be implemented in Madobi, Gezawa and Warawa Local Government Areas, covering 30 government schools and 20 Islamiyya community education nodes.
At the centre of the programme is the Transition Early Warning System (TEWS), powered by EDUDATA, which will identify girls who are out of school or at risk of dropping out, create trackable records for them and monitor their education journeys from JSS through SSS 3.
The programme will also use a Dual-Track Enrolment System, linking government schools with Islamiyya community nodes to provide a broader mechanism for identifying and supporting girls at risk of leaving education.
Speaking on the initiative, Executive Director of DO Take Action, Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, said the focus was not merely on having a policy but ensuring that the policy reaches girls who are at risk of being left behind.
“It is good to have a policy, but in order to have an implementation pathway, that’s why we’re coming here to work on the REED framework,” Obi said.
She said the framework would help stakeholders identify girls, track their progress, predict potential dropout points and provide interventions to keep them in school.
“These girls are tracked, identified and being sustained in their school. So no girl goes behind,” she said.
Obi identified poverty, early marriage and lack of access to educational facilities among the major factors contributing to girls’ dropout from school.
She said the programme would move beyond statistics to identify individual girls and understand their specific needs.
“What we are asking is, who are these girls? Beyond the statistics, beyond the numbers, who are these girls? We have Aisha, Zainab and co. Who are these girls? How do we find them and get their unique needs?” she said.
According to her, TEWS would be used to identify the girls and monitor their education journeys while stakeholders advocate for the necessary support.
“The Transition Early Warning System is designed to track these girls, identify them, predict when their next dropout will be, and see how we can ensure that they stay in school,” Obi explained.
She said DO Take Action was also calling on the Kano State Government to institutionalise the REED and TEWS frameworks and create a dedicated budget line for implementation of the re-entry policy.
“We want the government to institutionalize the REED framework and the TEWS framework. Because this is a very important and evidence-based model,” she said.
Obi further called for the provision of safe and inclusive educational facilities for girls returning to school.
“These girls who want to come back to school cannot come back to dilapidated buildings. They cannot come back to a building that is not secure,” she said.
She said the organisation wanted girls to have a safe and equitable learning environment, whether they choose the formal government school pathway or the Islamiyya pathway.
The REED programme is expected to identify, track and support more than 600 at-risk girls during its first two years, while 100 school leaders, including principals and Mallams, will receive training.
The programme has set a target of achieving at least 75 per cent retention of supported girls through Junior Secondary School and into Senior Secondary School.
The first two years will focus on generating evidence from Kano State, with the model expected to be replicated in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State in the third year.
A youth participant, Ahmed Junaid, said some girls in Kano leave school because of early marriage, while others face opposition from their husbands when they seek to return to formal education.
“A lot of girls dropped out, not just because of lack of access. Some dropped out as a result of early marriage,” Junaid said.
He added that some husbands do not support their wives’ return to school.
“Even when some people are oriented to it, some people are so adamant to say that, ‘My wife is not going to go back to formal education,’” he said.
The REED initiative will run from August 15, 2026, to August 14, 2029, with the Malala Fund serving as the grant partner.
The organisers said the ultimate objective was to protect girls’ 12-year education journey by ensuring that barriers at transition points do not permanently cut them off from education.
