By Kuni Tyessi The North-east states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe have received the sum of $20 million accelerated funding grant to tackle the menace of out-of-school children and other educational challenges facing the region. The grant, which was given by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), is to also help improve foundational learning skills, establish robust teacher preparation, professional development and recruitment systems, address protection issues, and strengthen leadership capacity for education in emergency for long term sustainability as well as system strengthening. Speaking at the flag-off ceremony for the implementation of the programme in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said the GPE Accelerated Funding seeks to support state-driven interventions that transparently address the gaps in delivering education in emergency and inequities existing within the education sector in each of the BAY (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) States.