In some schools in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, nine teachers attend to more than 1,200 pupils.
The statistics may be worse in other parts of the state with the ratio of pupils-to-teachers rising to an undesirable 200 to one.
Specifically, in Ngarnam Primary School and Yelwa Peace Estate Primary School in Maiduguri, nine permanent teachers and two volunteers struggle with 1,217 pupils – no thanks to the decade-and-half-long Boko Haram insurgency which displaced and killed many teachers.
Meanwhile, for the first time since 2009, when the terror group launched an onslaught on public infrastructure in the Northeast, especially on schools, pupils in the region appear to have the opportunity for a new lease of life.
The devastation caused by the war waged by Boko Haram on the region forced many parents to flee their villages and relocate, for example, to the state capital, which was the epicentre of the terror.
About 1.9 million boys, girls and youth affected by the conflict are without access to basic quality education in the region.
“This is inclusive of 56 per cent of displaced children who are out-of-school,” the United Nations Children Funds said.
Through the Global Partnership on Education (GPE) Accelerated Fund intervention project, normalcy is beginning to return to the region and learning is taking centre-stage again.
To set the pace for academic activities in the Northeast, UNICEF trained 18,000 unqualified teachers in the region.
With the training, at least one million girls and boys would benefit as the newly certified teachers return to their classrooms equipped with modern and effective teaching methods.
‘At a point, we lost two academic sessions’
The Executive Secretary, Borno State Universal Basic Education Board, Prof. Bulama Kagu, lamented the impact of the war on education in the state.
According to him, the state lost two academic sessions to the Boko Haram war.
He confirmed the killing of over 400 teachers in the last decade since the insurgency started in the northeast.
Kagu said: “You all know the catastrophe that has befallen Borno State in the last one decade, which we know the quantum of devastation in terms of human and material resources; so many lives were destroyed, we lost not fewer than 400 teachers, large numbers of classrooms were destroyed, children, teachers abducted.
“We thank God that we are gradually recuperating, at a point we lost two academic sessions, were it not for intervention agencies the situation would have been worse, we remain grateful to the Global Partnership for Education they have provided so many things for us like learning centres and instructional materials.”
UNICEF’s Chief of Maiduguri Field Office, Ms Phuong Nguyen said the 12-month training was an initiative of the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Teachers Institute (NTI) and the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN).
According to the UNICEF chief, the support by the UN agency was geared at encouraging unqualified teachers to study and pass the TRCN’s qualifying examination.
“The programme has supported more than 18,000 unqualified teachers working in Northeast Nigeria to study and pass the TRCN’s qualifying examination,” she said.
Speaking during the media dialogue with reporters in Maiduguri, the UNICEF chief said the teachers were inducted and licensed in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
She added that more than 500,000 children had been provided with learning materials.
The capacity of 438 education officials had been strengthened on education-in-emergency leadership, and result-based planning and budgeting, Nguyen also said.
Out-of-school children and learning crises remain major issues , says UNICEF
The UNICEF chief said the challenges of the out-of-school children and learning crises in the education sector in the country remained issues that the UN agency is working to address.
She said: “The challenges of out-of-school children and the learning crises in the education sector remain issues that UNICEF and stakeholders are working to address.
“This is to ensure that every child has the opportunity that education offers and be equipped with skills to survive and contribute positively to the society.
“One major accomplishment is the teachers’training programme of the GPE’s Accelerated Funding (AF) project.”
Nguyen assured that with the training, at least one million girls and boys would benefit as the newly certified teachers returned to their classrooms equipped with modern and effective teaching methods.
The modern teaching methods include skills to provide gender-sensitive and psychosocial support to learners, she explained.
She added that UNICEF was excited as the teachers training might finally be turning the tide against high school dropout rate as well as facilitate access and retention of children in school.
She assured that millions more children would surely have better learning outcomes with a large cohort of motivated, trained, prepared, and equipped teachers in classrooms across the Northeast geopolitical zone.
Only 29 per cent of schools in North – East have teachers with minimum qualification
Nguyen lamented that as at 2022 only 29 per cent of schools in the Northeast zone had teachers with the minimum qualification where the average pupil-teacher ratio is 124 to 1.
“Almost half of all the schools need rehabilitation.
“Only 47 per cent of schools in Borno have furniture with lower proportions in Yobe (32 per cent) and Adamawa (26 per cent).
“In Adamawa, only 30 per cent of schools have adequate learning materials for pupils with lower proportions (26 per cent) in Borno and (25 per cent) in Yobe,’’ she said.
She added that it was not a surprise, therefore, that the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys conducted in 2021 showed that less than half of children (48.6 per cent) completed their primary school education in the northeast.
“About 1.9 million boys, girls and youth affected by conflict are without access to basic quality education in the region.
“This is inclusive of 56 per cent of all displaced children who are out-of-school,” Nguyen said.
Kagu commended the intervention saying it had helped to reduce the quantum of devastation meted to the region.
He applauded the initiatives at helping to renovate classrooms, construct temporary learning centres, provide instructional materials and training of teachers in psychosocial support to enhance teaching and learning.
“Government is cognizant of providing furniture in the schools through our matching grant from the Federal Government.
“For every matching grant intervention, there is provision to provide infrastructure, especially because of the burning down of schools by insurgents.
“With these interventions, learning has been enhanced within a short period and we hope to see more to have remarkable education standards at all levels from the primary school to the tertiary level,” he said.
Not yet uhuru
As earlier revealed, during a visit to Ngarnam Primary School and Yelwa Peace Estate Primary School situated in Borno metropolis, the Headmaster, Kolomi Mustapha Goni admitted that over 1,217 students were being taught by nine permanent teachers and two volunteers in eight classroom blocks.
He also said the ratio of students per class was on the increase, approximately 80 pupils per class. Goni explained that majority of the pupils were from parents fleeing the troubled communities in Borno to settle in the city centre.
Despite the efforts of the state government, more needs to be done to provide pupils of the state education to enhance their skills.
