Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, has announced a two-billion-naira Learners Retention Support Programme aimed at keeping 100,000 pupils in school across the country.

Under the programme, each beneficiary will receive 20,000 naira to help overcome financial challenges affecting school attendance and retention.

Mrs Tinubu announced this at the national flag-off of the distribution of two million packs of sanitary towels and back-to-school learning materials to girls in public basic education schools across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

The First Lady said no girl should be denied education because of menstrual hygiene challenges or her family’s inability to provide basic educational materials.

She explained that the initiative, known as Flow with Confidence 2.0, was designed to address challenges forcing girls, particularly those in rural communities, to miss school during menstruation.

Mrs Tinubu recalled that the first phase of the initiative, launched in October 2025, provided a year’s supply of disposable sanitary pads to 370,000 schoolgirls in rural communities nationwide.

She commended the Universal Basic Education Commission for expanding the programme and urged state officials to ensure transparent and accountable distribution of the materials.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the Federal Government was taking steps to make menstrual hygiene support a permanent feature of its basic education programmes.

Alausa disclosed that UBEC would provide for sanitary towels in its annual budgets, while the World Bank-supported Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment would sustain the intervention throughout the project’s duration.

Also speaking, the Chairman of the UBEC Governing Board, Tanko Al-Makura, warned that school dropout and child marriage were closely connected, particularly among girls from financially disadvantaged households.

He pledged the board’s commitment to monitoring the distribution to ensure that the materials reached the intended beneficiaries.

In a goodwill message, the Education Lead at the British High Commission, Ian Attfield, said investment in girls’ education had significant economic and social benefits.

Attfield noted that every additional year of schooling increased women’s earnings by an average of 12 per cent.