Advocacy capacity building of project staff on Safe School Declaration (SSD) protocols in Kaduna State has been held with a view to enhancing their knowledge on minimum standard for safe schools.
The Declaration is an international commitment by countries all over the world, including Nigeria expressing support for the protection of students, teachers and their schools during armed conflicts as well as the importance of continued education outside class during emergencies.
The Facilitator, Mr. Benjamin Maigari who gave an overview of the advocacy Rise Up project of Public Health Institute, Oakland, California, USA and being implemented by the Family Health Advocates in Nigeria Initiative, FHANI noted that although the State was exercising e-learning, but it had no policy document.
Members of FHANI Advocacy implementation team. Sitting center is the Chairman, Bunnun Zazzau, Alhaji Bala Muhammad Tijjani
The policy Document on e-learning in schools, he emphasized, is necessary not only to ensure sustenance but improves enrollment, retention and learning outcomes.
Mr. Maigari stated that schools in Kaduna State have become largely unsafe due to series of attacks by bandits and terrorists .
The insecurity arising from banditry and kidnapping, he said, have discouraged parents to send their children to school and also affected girls education.
Quoting the current data from Kaduna State annual security report of accountability and transparency 2021, he said, 74% of girls affected by insecurity and their communities displaced, dropped out of schools with just 20% of them transit to other schools in different secured locations.
Generally, Maigari said, a report released by the State Ministry of Education Personnel Audit disclosed over 500,000 out of school children in the State mainly due to insecurity.
” Most of them are found in Kajuru, Chikun, Igabi, Giwa and Birnin Gwari and that Out of the 2,425,670 children between the ages of 10 and 18 years, an estimated number of 524, 670 are out of school, of which 68% are girls.”
Earlier, Rise Up Nigerian Fellow 3 2022 Cohort (FHANI), Miss Grace Yila Maikano had not only enumerated the objectives of the meeting, but explained the difference between Safe School Declaration and Safe School Initiative.
She said while the Safe School Declaration emerged from a conference in Oslo, Norway in May 2015, Safe School Initiative (SSI) was launched at World Economic Forum on Africa in Nigeria by a coalition of Nigerian business leaders working with the UN Envoy for Global Education.
The Global Business Coalion for Education was set up in response to growing number of attacks on the right to education, including the kidnapping of more than 200 girls at once in North East Nigeria.
