Northern Education Initiative Plus (NEI+) Program

The Nigeria Northern Education Initiative Plus (NEI+) program seeks to improve access and quality of education for more than 2 million school-aged children and youth in two northern states in Nigeria. Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the five-year program strengthened the states’ ability to provide quality education—especially for girls, orphans, and children enrolled in nontraditional schools—and improved children’s reading skills. Creative and its partners focused on building programmatic ownership among federal, state, and Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs), as well as increasing their commitment to quality early-grade reading instruction and increased access. 

By incorporating early-grade reading instruction concepts, techniques, practice, and materials into national teacher training programs, graduates were equipped with a comprehensive set of instructional skills that directly and positively impacted their students’ primary school learning outcomes. NEI+ reached nearly 1.4 million children in first to third grades, along with more than 400,000 out-of-school children and youth attending some 11,000 non-formal learning centers, adolescent girls learning centers, and youth learning centers. NEI+ was implemented in Bauchi and Sokoto states.