The year 2021 ended with many challenges in the education sector that have spilled over into the New Year. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE and DAMOLA KOLA-DARE report on how they are being tackled by stakeholders.
Schools abductions threatened education
One of the biggest challenges that the Nigerian education sector faced last year was the abduction of children from schools.
Last month, the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) reported that 1,440 children were abducted in 25 attacks on schools by bandits. The figure is hundreds more than the number of children abducted in seven years.
The number of attacks not only significantly increased but spread from Borno, Yobe and Katsina states, where the most notable attacks started to Niger, Sokoto, Jigawa, Zamfara and Kaduna states where many children are still in captivity.
Prominent among the mass school abductions in 2021 were: Bethel Baptist High School, Kaduna, where 121 pupils were abducted on July 5 and were released in batches until January 1. The bandits demanded N180 million from the parents. One pupil remains in captivity.
Other school abductions that made headlines were: 73 pupils kidnapped form Government Day Secondary School in Kaya, Zamfara state (September 1); 15 students kidnapped from College of Agriculture, Zamfara (August 16); an undetermined number of pupils were abducted from the Federal Government College, Birnin-Yauri (June 17); 29 students of Greenfield University Kaduna kidnapped on April 18. Five of the students were killed.
The attacks led to school closures in the northern part of Nigeria. In September, many states, like Kaduna and Niger, did not resume on schedule for the 2020/2021 academic session. Some states operated partial resumption – closing schools in insecure areas and relocating the children to schools in more secure neighbourhoods.
However, many Civil Society Organisations reported that even where schools were open, parents did not allow their wards to attend for fear of being kidnapped.
AbdulGaniu Abubakar, who runs a CSO in Sokoto, said of the development: “Parents do not want to send their children back to school. Education in Zamfara, Sokoto and Niger states has been crippled for good three years.”
The School Safety Declaration signed by Nigeria and over 100 other countries last October when Nigeria hosted the International Safe School Conference in Abuja commits the country to addressing issues that make schools unsafe.
Last December, the development Research and Project Centre (dRPC) trained representatives of 36 CSOs across the country to implement the Safe School Declaration.
The Safe School Manual used for the training has five modules that covers: Minimum Standards for Safe Schools; rights of a child; violence in school settings and other non-formal environment, safeguarding of learners against violence and abuse, roles of teachers and SBMCs in child safeguarding; mandatory reporting of cases of abuse and violence against learners; and continuing education during armed conflict, among others.
National Coordinator, Education in Emergency Working Group (EIEWG), Dr. Judith Giwa-Amu, said it was important to train CSOs since they are at the grassroots and front liners who can support the government to run with the vision across the country.
As follow up, the Executive Director of dRPC, Dr. Judith-Ann Walker said the centre would cover more ground this year by training School Based Management Committtees to respond to school safety issues in 10 states with funding from the Ford Foundation.
She said: “For the new year the dRPC will building on the recommendations of the Step-down workshop to strengthening the capacity of 40 School Based Management Committees (SBMC) and community based associations (CBOs) supporting Girls’ Education in 10 states to help them to document the incidence of school attacks; and to trace and report on the impact of the attacks for enrollment, transition and retention of girls in particular; on educational outcomes; attitudes to school-based formal education in the community; and on the capacity of these CBOs and SBMCs to innovative by introducing and supporting new forms of safe spaces for girls’ education.”
The Safe School Declaration recommends increased funding for education in conflict areas; de-militarisation of schools; and sensitisation of military to strengthen child protection, among others.
Fed Govt, ASUU: An unending battle
The cat and mouse relationship between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government played out prominently last year. The union spent most of the year threatening to resume strike over the failure of the Federal Government to meet its demands on the 2009 ASUU/FGN Agreement. The demands included injecting some N1.3 billion to revitalise facilities in public universities; the adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solutions (UTAS) created by the union to replace the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as payment platform; and payment of earned academic allowances, among others.
The government’s promise to fulfill the demands was what prompted the union to suspend its nine-month strike last year on December 23.
Following the strike, the Federal Government released N65 billion early last year.
Labour Minister Chris Ngige said the money “was proposed to be shared in two different manners. First, a proposal for N25 billion revitalisation and N40 billion earned allowances for all the unions in the universities.”
The second proposal, according to him, was “the issue of revitalisation getting N30 billion and earned allowances getting N35 billion.”
However, after that time the union accused the government of failing to fulfill its promise, while government accused the union of forcing its hand to meet their demands.
Finally, on December 10, government released additional N52.5 billion for revitalisation and earned allowances.
ASUU condemned the piece-meal release of funds with the national ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke saying the union was ready to go back to the trenches following government’s failure to replace IPPIS with UTAS, revitalize universities and renegotiate the 2009 Agreement.
In a chat with The Nation, ASUU Chairman, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Dr. Dele Ashiru, said for the union to stop going on strike, government must fulfill all agreements, particularly the 2009 renegotiated agreement.
He said: “An agreement was signed in 2009 with four principal components, condition of service,funding for revitalisation of public universities, university autonomy and academic freedom, among others. More than 12 years after that agreement, government has implemented the agreement in breach.
“The agreement was renegotiated in May (2021), between that time and today, government has refused to sign the agreement. In fact, it is the bone of contention between our union and Federal Government. If it is not signed, the conditions of service of our members which includes salaries will not have changed in the last 12 years.
“Government must as a matter of urgency, commence the implementation of the renegotiated agreement.”
On the approval of UTAS by the Federal Government, Ashiru noted that the union would not accept “mere pronouncement”, until lecturers’ salaries were paid through the platform.
“We are hearing on pages of newspapers that government has approved UTAS, but for our members, it is a mere pronouncement. We will not accept that UTAS has been approved, it is until our salaries are paid through it,” he said.
Ashiru said the union would embark on strike if interventions from well-meaning Nigerians including the Nigerian Interreligious Council do not yield positive results.
He said: “Our union is waiting for the interventions. If those interventions are not positive, our union would have no choice but to resume our suspended strike. Our union in its characteristic manner is only tarrying a little to see if government would yield to the voice of reason.
“As we speak, a large proportion of academia in the country is yet to receive December salary.
”However, between now and our next meeting (early January), our union will review the situation and take appropriate actions.”
Death by bullying
The death of Sylvester Oromoni Jnr, a JSS2 pupil of Dowen College, Lekki last November 31, as a result of injuries sustained from bullying came as a shock to Nigerians.
The incidents that led to Oromoni’s death are being investigated by the Nigeria Police and the Lagos State Government, which shut the boarding school on December 3.
According to an autopsy report by a consultant pathologist at the Central Hospital Warri, Clement Vhriterhire, Oromoni died due to “acute lung injury due to chemical intoxication in a background of blunt force trauma.”
President Muhammadu Buhari, through his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu expressed interest in the case, saying the culprits would be punished accordingly.
The case ignited an anti-bullying campaign across the country – with experts, professional groups and schools coming up with programmes aimed at addressing bullying.
While the Child Protection Network (CPN) called for implementation of child protection policies in schools; the Association of Professional Counsellors in Nigeria (APROCON), Lagos chapter urged the Lagos State Government to mandate all private schools to engage full-time counsellors.
The case also got prominent attention during a training for Civil Society Organisations in Abuja early this month, to implement the Safe School Declaration as bullying was identified as part of violence that makes the school environment unsafe for pupils.
As schools resumed in Lagos for the second term of the 2021/2022 academic session on Tuesday, the Education Commissioner, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo directed schools to implement safeguarding measures against bullying and other threats.
In an interview with The Nation, Mrs. Adefisayo said schools should monitor pupils more and check negative behaviour.
“We are hoping that schools do everything, have zero tolerance. Just put in as many procedures in place to prevent bad incidents happening.
“There are many things that any school can do. Any case that comes, you immediately treat it with dispatch and then, you keep watch over the students. Keep watching them. You will see the one that are unhappy and teachers should stay close to their students so you can see the change in behavior and so. They are so many things the School can do. And that’s what we are counselling them,” she said.
Since Oromoni’s death, experts have recommended how victims of bullying can be helped.
A Clinical Psychologist at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Oyo State, Dr. Oluwafisayo Adebimpe, said bullying could be overcome through psychological treatments.
According to her, the individual would go through sessions for specific periods of time – up to 16 weeks – and areas of inadequacies are targeted.
She stated that some go through Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Assertive Therapy, Behaviour therapy/ Behaviour modifications.
She said treatment would focus on how the self-esteem and self-confidence are reactivated.
“Some victims would also have to go through cognitive restructuring and cognitive challenge. There is a need to denounce the false and erroneous beliefs/perception of the negatives feedbacks they went through in the hands of those who bullied them.”
