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By Gloria Ikibah

Key actors in Kaduna State have renewed calls for life skills education to be formally embedded within the education system as part of wider efforts to improve learning outcomes, safeguard adolescent girls and better prepare them for life beyond the classroom.

The call was made during a one-day follow-up meeting of critical stakeholders on the strategic institutionalisation of life skills under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) Project, held on Thursday, in Abuja.

Participants at the meeting stressed that equipping girls with practical life skills is essential not only for academic success, but also for building confidence, resilience and informed decision-making during adolescence.

The meeting brought together education leaders, legislature,  development partners and civil society actors, all of whom underscored the need for coordinated action to translate policy discussions into measurable impact within schools and communities across Kaduna State.

Speaking to journalists at the event, the Executive Director of the Centre for Girls’ Education, Habiba Mohammed, described the engagement as a turning point in the approach to girls’ education.

She explained that the focus was shifting away from short-term pilot programmes towards lasting reforms that embed life skills into education policy and practice.
According to her, institutionalising life skills education would help ensure sustainability, consistency and wider reach, allowing more girls to benefit regardless of location or background. She added that such an approach would strengthen existing education frameworks while responding more effectively to the social and developmental challenges faced by adolescent girls.
 
She said: “What we have concluded today is not just another meeting, it marks a clear transition from project-based experimentation to system-level reform in how we prepare young people, especially girls, for life beyond the classroom”.
 
Mohammed explained that for more than 18 years, the Centre for Girls’ Education has worked across northern Nigeria and parts of West Africa to ensure that schooling goes beyond academics and equips girls with practical skills, confidence and a sense of agency.

Açcording to her, over this period, the organisation’s Safe Space model — which combines life skills, literacy, numeracy, health education and leadership development — has consistently produced positive and measurable outcomes.

She added that findings from programmes such as the World Bank–supported AGILE initiative and the UNFPA-backed Adolescent Girls Initiative point to higher school retention rates, delayed early marriage, improved decision-making among girls and stronger, more supportive relationships between schools and their surrounding communities.

She also revealed that deliberations at the meeting included progress updates on a draft bill aimed at formally embedding life skills as a co-curricular subject in public secondary schools across Kaduna State. She described the proposal as a significant step with long-term implications for girls’ education, protection and overall life prospects.
 
“Life skills are not ‘soft outcomes.’ They are foundational capabilities that protect learning, dignity and future opportunity,” she said.
 
She added that stakeholders also deliberated on a clear institutional framework for embedding life skills education, including policy and legal integration, curriculum adoption, dedicated budget lines and defined governance roles for the Ministry of Education, SUBEB, the Senior Secondary Schools Education Board and the Kaduna State School Quality Assurance Authority.
 
The Chairman House Committee on Education, Kaduna State House of Assembly, Hon. Mahmud Lawal, said that the legislature would work towards ensuring the bill becomes law.
 
Hon. Lawal, who is also the Deputy Chief Whip of KSHA, assured that lawmakers will ensure the bill clearly addresses its objectives, and void duplication of existing laws and implemented when passed.

“The bill is all about ensuring that our students are being protected and are given quality education in terms of life skills. That is the essence of the bill,” he said.
 
The project coordinator AGILE, Kaduna State, Maryam Sani Dangaji, said it is a World Bank–assisted programme, which operates in 21 states, has invested heavily in life skills education for adolescent girls over the past two to three years.
 
She explained that AGILE’s life skills component focused on areas such as personal hygiene, health, leadership, self-agency, confidence and the value of education – skills not typically taught in conventional classrooms.
 
“We don’t want the efforts to be wasted as the project is about to close. That is why we want the state government to sustain this huge investment by making life skills part of the state’s curricular activities as a non-examinable subject,” she said.
 
She explained that embedding life skills into the education system would only work with the support of a wide range of stakeholders, including religious leaders, parents, community organisations and relevant government ministries.

Dangaji noted that their involvement, was key to preventing pushback and ensuring the programme was introduced without difficulty.

The Kaduna State Commissioner for Education, Professor Abubakar Sani Sambo, however disclosed that more than 40,000 adolescent girls across the state has already benefited from a structured life skills education programme.

He said the initiative was now being expanded under Governor Uba Sani’s administration, with plans to integrate it into all public secondary schools in the state.

According to the state government, the programme forms part of broader efforts to promote girl-child education while also providing students with practical, real-world skills that go beyond the traditional classroom curriculum.