UK-funded PLANE programme closes after reaching 2 million Nigerian children
Over seven years it trained more than 25,000 teachers in five northern states, which have now pledged to keep its reforms going.
Kaduna — A UK-funded education programme that reached more than two million Nigerian children and helped train over 25,000 teachers formally closed at an event in Kaduna on Wednesday.
The Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria (PLANE) has worked since 2019 on foundational literacy and numeracy, education in emergencies, safer schools and stronger education systems. It operated at federal level and in Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Borno and Yobe states, and was delivered by DAI, UNICEF, Save the Children and other partners.
Education commissioners from all five states pledged at the close-out to sustain the reforms.
"PLANE is closing. The UK's education partnership with Nigeria is not," said the British High Commissioner, Pete Vowles. He said Nigerian institutions were already adopting and scaling approaches that worked.
The test ahead
Keeping the gains will need steady funding, stronger delivery capacity and the folding of successful methods into the public school system, so that children not only enrol but learn to read and count.
Source: THISDAY via AllAfrica, 30 October 2026.
