The Federal Ministry of Education says steps are being taken to make sure that the country’s schools are secured and comfortable for studying and other activities.
The Ministry is attempting to adopt some specific safety measures, including temporarily banning boarding schools in remote areas due to insecurity, according to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Andrew Adejo.
Adejo dropped the clue in his speech at the start of the Joint Consultative Committee on Education’s 81st plenary meeting, which was held in Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, on Monday.
The JCCE held a meeting themed, “Strengthening Security and Safety in Nigeria Schools for the Achievement of Education 2030 Agenda.”
Adejo urged the council to take decisive actions, such as putting the Safe School Declaration initiatives into practice and domesticating them, as well as having the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps conduct a vulnerability survey on schools in order to help the council come up with plans for securing and enhancing school safety.
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Additionally, he called for the adoption of some specific safety measures, such as the temporary elimination of boarding schools in rural areas, instruction of students and teachers in emergency security measures, the building of perimeter walls around schools, and the installation of CCTV/alarm systems in schools. He added that a decision on these matters would be made at the meeting of the national council of education in October.
According to the PS, the adoption of these measures was crucial since there is a connection between high-quality education and the presence of a calm, secure environment that promotes effective teaching and learning.
He said, “The essence of the meeting is to galvanise action of all stakeholders then go to council hopefully by October. We have done all the analysis; we have done all the reviews along with stakeholders.
“We want all our educational institutions to be safe and secure and these are the things we need to do to put in place and that does not mean we are not already doing some things. There are some things that require the highest level of political commitment and for everybody to be on the same page.”
“We are prepared to take our recommendations to the National Council on Education but before then, there are some decisions that will be reached here that would have to be made by the states at some levels where you will see some form of reductions in attacks on all these schools.”
