Education
–
The Nigerian government is collaborating with donor agencies to return more than one million children in the North East back to school
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Jan 30, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE Nigerian government wants to reduce the growing number of out-of-school children in the North East. This is why the government is targeting more than one million children out-of-school in the region to get them back to schools. The federal government through the Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiative, PCNI, is collaborating with donor agencies to ensure that children in the northeast who have been out of school for three to six years are returned to classrooms.
Senator Ali Ndume, member of PCNI, stated that the initiative also targets saving children with acute malnutrition in the Northeast. Ndume, who made the revelation after the meeting of the committee in Abuja, on Tuesday, January 17, said: “The initiative is centred on the humanitarian crises in the Northeast, which you know food security, malnutrition of children, access to health and the rekindling of education are the principal things that we need to address. We are now more or less laying the foundation before we launch full swing the activities of the PCNI. You know it is a presidential intervention so to say and we want to lay a solid foundation, all the meetings we have been having is to lay a solid foundation to execute the Buhari plan which is the mandate given to us.
“Now we are trying to work out a way to really start implementing the Buhari plan effectively so that it can have the desired impact which is in dire need now due to the humanitarian crises that exist in the Northeast particularly as it affects Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.
“It has to do with rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement but we are trying to prioritise the projects, most of the people affected are farmers and most of the IDP’s are living with the host communities, we are trying to strategise first we have to save the people, then secondly save the children that are saving acute malnutrition, we are trying to complement and reach out to them, we are trying to take the children back to school, some of the children have been out of school for three to six years and it is dangerous for the future of this country.
“The target is to work with states, federal government and other international donor agencies to make sure that the children with no access to education, have access. Prior to these crises, the Northeast was an area that is believed to be the poorest on earth because of the challenges of poverty, education, environment etc., insurgency has only added to the problem.”
Nonetheless, the Human Rights Watch, HRW, had in April 2016, said that Boko Haram attacks and the Nigerian military tactics are depriving over one million children in the northeast education. According to HRW, since the attacks peaked in 2009 and up until 2015, more than 910 schools have been destroyed in explosions and at least 1,500 others forced to close.
Worse, by early 2016, HRW says an estimated 952,029 school age children have fled the violence. They also have no access to education. “At least 611 teachers have been deliberately killed and a further 19,000 have been forced to flee since 2009. More than 2,000 people, many of them female, have been abducted by the group, many from their schools from the beginning of the conflict,” HRW said in its report.
While the attacks by Boko Haram are considered damning, the tactics of the Nigerian government, according to HRW, are worrying and contrary to the Safe Schools Declaration that Nigeria endorsed and got money to uphold in 2015. “Nigerian security forces have also been implicated in crimes in its operations against Boko Haram, including the killing, harassing, and intimidation of Quranic school teachers and students. Government forces have also used schools for military purposes, which is contrary to the Safe Schools Declaration that Nigeria endorsed in 2015 and may place schools at risk of attack.”
The rights organisation says insurgent’s attacks and schools being used for military purposes have greatly affected children’s right to education and in turn a better life. HRW said the Nigeria government has failed to adequately protect schools. “As a result of displacements caused by Boko Haram attacks on schools and other targets, many children have limited schooling in displacement camps or in private homes and communities where they are hosted by friends, families, and others across northern Nigeria.
“In such camps, schools consist of children grouped according to their age in large rooms or underneath trees for three to four hours of lessons per day, in most cases three times a week. School materials such as paper and pencils are provided in United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, supplied bags, but there are no textbooks for the children or other teaching aids for teachers,” it said.
— Jan 30, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT
|
Tags:
