In collaboration with Nigeria’s Ministry of Education and affiliated agencies in Nigeria’s northern states of Katsina and Zamfara, FHI 360 is implementing the Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) pilot project. Funded by the Department for International Development through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), this project aims to improve the quality of literacy and numeracy instruction for girls and boys in primary grades 1–3 in approximately 200 schools in the two states. These schools and states form a subset of UNICEF’s Girls’ Education Project Phase 3 (GEP3), the impact of which RANA expects to enhance by using gender-sensitive methodologies in four major components of the education system: teacher professional development, teaching and learning materials, involved communities and sustainable government ownership.
Using its Hausa-based early grade reading approach, which integrates numeracy and gender themes into its materials, RANA will build the capacity of 600 teachers to implement effective instruction and assessments. The project will engage local communities to build support for early grade reading and engage in policy dialogue and capacity building with the government to build local ownership and assist both state governments in identifying strategies for pilot scale-up. Through RANA’s integrated literacy and numeracy approach, and its commitment to collaboration with local stakeholders, the project will support a scalable, improved system for early grade reading and numeracy across Katsina and Zamfara.
To implement RANA, FHI 360 will combine its 30 years of experience in Nigeria with the expertise of local nongovernmental organizations, the Achieving Health Nigeria Initiative and the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN). These partners of FHI 360 will implement specific components of the project while receiving guidance and capacity building from FHI 360.
