By Winifred Bulus
Ramatu Tijani, a peace activist in Nigeria has urged Nigerian Government to introduce Peace Education in the country’s primary, secondary and tertiary institutions for the sake of promoting peaceful co-existence amongst citizens.
The peace activist in an interview with some Journalists in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria, stated the need for building young minds towards peace, which has become a vital issue in the country.
“Peace education refers to the process of acquiring values, Knowledge, and develop attitude, skills and behavior to live in harmony with one self, others and natural environment.
“The overall goal of the peace education is by no doubt to promote peaceful co-existence among learners, better understanding hence contributing to peace and national cohesion in the country and this is mainly achieved through equipping members of the school community with sound knowledge, skills, and attitudes for managing conflict, riot, crisis and demonstration without resulting to violence or any cause of alarm,” she said.
Ramatu revealed seven major ways of gearing peace education including; schools debate, human rights awareness, peace building, advocacy, leadership and learning to tolerate and accommodate each other.
She also added that peace education would go a long way in identifying early signs of conflict in young people and handling them the right way before getting out of hand and also enable young people communicate their feelings instead of bottling up anger that might be expressed through conflict.
“Peace Education helps children and young people discover the wonder and beauty within themselves ,nurturing inner peace, and it also supports the development of the attitudes, values and skills needed to respond to conflict creatively- encouraging inter-personal peace and unity among students of different faith base.
“It also encourages children to examine the root causes of violence and war and explore the possibilities for building peace at community,national and international levels through collective responsibility.” She says.
She appealed to the ministry of education and other stakeholders in the sector to invest in the future of the country’s education.
