By Temi Ohakwe, Abuja
The Safety of Schools, Students and their teachers should not be made the business of government alone but should involve the traditional & religious leaders as well as youths and the entire communities where the institutions are located.
The School-Based Management Committee SBMC, Chairman Dr Ibrahim Yusuf gave the assertion in Abuja during a one-day sensitisation and step down training for schools and stakeholders on safe schools.
Yusuf also cautioned security agencies against revealing their sources of information on security challenges saying this may deter locals from disclosing viable information.
According to the SBMC Chairman, “now is the time the government realised that they cannot resolve the problems of insecurity alone, everyone must know that we all are stakeholders in the matter of security, every stakeholder must speak out the right time they see something”
“Also there should be security outpost in all our schools, it could be at the local level, the communities could recruit vigilantes to support the government”
The traditional leader emphasized that traditional leaders have key roles to play in the provision of security for basic schools across Nigeria.
He however asked stakeholders on the SSD on sustenance of the programme calling for thorough implementation of the SSD to the grassroots levels across the country.
“I want to request that we make this initiative a grassroots programme when we give the School-Based Management Committee key responsibilities not only the teachers, this will help better in addressing security challenges facing our schools”
The FCT Safe School Declaration Team lead, Dr Alimigbe Frances, said participants at the workshop were carried along in the process of implementing minimum standards for safe schools, the roles of teachers and community members in safeguarding learners, school emergency preparedness and response and evacuation drill.
“All these are geared towards achieving the objectives of the training through increasing the knowledge base of school leadership teams on Safe School Declaration outcomes for transfer to their various schools as well as enhance the capacity of teachers to transfer demonstrable SSD knowledge, skills and practice at their community levels”
The Director FCT Universal Basic Education Commission, Mrs Okoro Helen, said the programme is to help learners in emergencies in schools across the six area councils of
the federal capital territory.
“It is expected that the teachers and the Headteachers will disseminate the lessons from this workshop to their other colleagues”
Ayuba Jessica , a student of Junior Secondary school Jabi 2 in FCT Abuja said the workshop has empowered her on skills & knowledge on the protection of students in schools.
“I have learnt about the need for our teachers to know how to protect students and how we students can protect ourselves and our items in school”
The FCT Safe School declaration team one-day training in the FCT area councils of Abuja was funded by the Development Research and Projects Center DRPC and the Ford Foundation.
The Safe Schools Declaration SSD is a global intergovernmental political commitment that provides countries with the opportunity to express support for the protection of students, teachers, schools and tertiary institutions from attack in times of armed conflict
The SSD FCT Team comprises, the Universal Basic Education Commission, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, Integrated Initiative for women & youth and others
