The Katsina State Government has launched the Scaling Access and Learning in Education (SCALE) programme, a UK Government-funded initiative aimed at strengthening foundational reading and mathematics skills among children across the state.
The programme was launched on Friday at the Katsina State Government House, with Governor Umar Dikko Radda in attendance and the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Suleiman Usman Jibia, delivering a goodwill message.
SCALE is being implemented in partnership with the Education Development Trust (EDT), Teaching at the Right Level Africa (TaRL Africa) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).
The programme works with national and state governments to integrate proven education interventions into public education systems at scale.
In Katsina and Zamfara states, SCALE will focus on improving reading and mathematics skills in Integrated Qur’anic and Tsangaya Education (IQTE) schools. It will also support a national review of the Accelerated Basic Education Programme (ABEP) curriculum to strengthen accelerated basic education for over-aged out-of-school children.
The initiative builds on results recorded in Kaduna State, where the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach was introduced in IQTE schools with support from the Aminu Musa Abdulsalam Foundation.
TaRL groups pupils according to their actual learning levels rather than their age or grade and uses dedicated teaching periods and regular assessments to improve basic reading and mathematics skills.
According to the programme partners, the approach has helped children who previously had no structured reading instruction to begin reading simple words and develop greater confidence in the classroom within months.
Speaking at the launch, Governor Radda said his administration viewed education as more than simply enrolling children in school, stressing that learning outcomes remained the ultimate objective.
“For us, education is not simply about getting a child into the school. Access is only the beginning, but learning is the ultimate objective,” Radda said.
He said the state government was committed to developing an education system capable of continuous improvement, adding that successful interventions would be considered for integration and sustainability within the state’s education system.
Jibia said the launch represented a major milestone in efforts to expand learning opportunities for emerging and IQTE learners across Katsina.
He said the state looked forward to building on the successes recorded during the pilot phase and working with partners towards broader, more effective and sustainable implementation of SCALE.
Also speaking, Cynthia Rowe, Head of Development Cooperation at the British High Commission in Abuja, said the initiative reflected a shared commitment to ensuring that every child had access to strong foundational literacy and numeracy skills regardless of the type of school attended.
She said the UK Government was proud to support Katsina in deploying evidence-based teaching approaches in IQTE schools and expressed optimism that the programme would help more children realise their potential.
Ian Attfield, Senior Education Adviser at the British High Commission, said too many children in Northern Nigeria had been denied access to quality education.
He called for greater efforts to provide flexible and evidence-based pathways to learning, stressing the need to ensure that no child was left behind.
The SCALE programme is expected to strengthen collaboration between the Katsina State Government and its development partners while improving foundational learning outcomes for children across different education pathways.
