Despite the Boko Haram insurgency, which has led to the closure of many schools in Borno and Yobe states, some are still operating to keep the education dreams of many youngsters alive. These schools are also participating in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), which began on Tuesday, reports BODUNRIN KAYODE (Maiduguri)
The 2014 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) began on Tuesday.
It may be routine in many parts of the country, but in the Northeast, which is the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, the exam is holding in a tense atmosphere.
About this period last year, the sect killed scores of candidates and teachers during the examination. Six teachers and a principal were killed in Monguno Local Government Area of Borno State. Some pupils of Monguno Secondary School were killed on their way home after the examination. Some deaths were also recorded during the examination in 2012.
Recent attacks on communities in Konjuga Town, Waga Chakawa, Mafa, Bama and Kawuri led to the exodus of families from the hinterland to relatively safer urban centres. This relocation and the government’s closure of public schools on March 14, have reduced the number of schools operating in Maiduguri and other urban areas.
The Commissioner of Education, Musa Kubo, said the directive was a precautionary measure aimed at safeguarding the lives and property of over 115,000 pupils and their teachers.
The order affected 85 government secondary schools, which will remain shut until May when the third term is expected to begin.
The Federal Government also shut all the Unity Schools in the Northeast, including the two at Monguno and Lassa following the killing of 59 pupils of the Federal Government College (FGC) in Buni-Yadi in Yobe State.
With the take-off of WASSCE, the government has taken measures to ensure the examinations hold without any hitch.
The Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mr Yusuf Ari, said the examining body hopes there during the exam with the precautionary measures taken by the federal and state governments.
He said: “The Federal Ministry of Education has reached an arrangement with the state government to relocate the students to Maiduguri; but the zonal coordinator for the area will have more details on this arrangement.”
The relocation of pupils to the few reputable schools in Maiduguri is causing some discomfort for the administrators but they are not turning pupils back.
Ibrahim Joji, the Principal of the 100-year-old Government College, Maiduguri, opposite the police headquarters, said the school survived some explosions in the past by young people working for the sect.
Despite having to cope with a school population that has quadrupled within months because of Boko Haram insurgency, Joji is in high spirits. His school and many other A grade schools now have to cope with many pupils, who may be up to 100 in a classroom.
While the school battles with 8,000 pupils, the nearby Government Girls’ College has over 4,000 more pupils.
When The Nation visited the Government College on Damaturu Road, it was clean, despite its 6,000 additional pupils. Most of the pupils are from government colleges in the hinterlands while some are from outside the state on the annual exchange programme.
Joji said the hostels were full, adding that it costs millions to feed the boys daily. Each day, he said the school slaughters at least two cows to feed them.
The principal is grateful to Governor Kashim Shettima, who has been spending millions to ensure that the remain in school.
“This state government facility boasts of 11 bore holes with 14 generators to assist the boys acquire their dreams of being educated at all costs. We are happy however that the Governor has renovated the whole facility to enable all the kids from northern Borno to go to school. Our toilets are far better and we maintain maximum standard of hygiene to enable each student socialise effectively whether from other schools or ours,” he said.
The principal said keeping the school open and running smoothly is the only way they, as educationists, can keep the young ones from straying into the hands of the insurgents who may end up radicalising them and sending them into the forest to learn how to kill without emotions.
Joji, who handles the pupils like his own children, has convinced his teachers to also see them as such. But he noted that many of them are traumatised.
He said: “Some of them mark up to a thousand scripts per test or examination, especially if they are teaching core subjects like Mathematics and English Language. Lots of teachers have been displaced by this menace. It is not easy to leave your home in Bama or Baga, for instance, to stay in choked-up Maiduguri for fear of losing your life to the insurgents. But we have decided to accommodate some of them who have volunteered to assist because they cannot relocate entirely without a home,” he said.
Joji is optimistic of better performance in this year’s WASSCE, despite the current challenges. Last year, he said 543 candidates got five credits in the National Examination Council Senior Secondary Certificate Examination. Of the number, 380 had credit in Mathematics and English. For the 2013 WASSCE, 384 candidates made credits in five subjects – with about 111 making Mathematics and English out of over 600 candidates.
At the Government Girls College, Maiduguri, Mrs Iya Mongunu said giving up on the struggle would spell doom for the education of the girl-child.
“I have to cope,” she told The Nation “because the girl-child must go to school. We cannot shut down because we now have between 80 and 100 in a class,” she added.
Like the case in the boys’ school, Mrs Mongunu said her girls are from all over the state. Their parents withdrew them from endangered areas before the Boko Haram challenged the girls of Konjuga to leave their school to go get married.
She said: “The government through the principal of that school had no choice but to relocate the kids down to Maiduguri. The threat was so real that they were lucky they were not slaughtered when they were surrounded by the insurgents early this year. It was like an assembly hall session where the Boko Haram were the teachers.
“Some of the girls trekked over 20 kilometres to Maiduguri and those are the ones we have here. You need to see the sores on the legs of some of them after running for their lives when they finally escaped the haramists.”
Husena Musa was one of the girls who escaped from Konjuga. She trekked the distance with four others, Bilkisu Dairu, Binta Mohammed, Medina Hassan and Fatima Yerima. They told The Nation that they spent one week in hospital to recuperate.
Husena said of the experience: “They warned us to leave the school premises and go home. They warned that if we were still there when they returned by midnight, they would slaughter us since we refused to leave the school to get married. They said we had nothing to do with western education.”
Though coping with academics in their new school is a challenge, they said they were happy to sit for the exam.
“We were happy when the government asked most students to come down to Maiduguri to sit for the WASSCE. Government should beef up security in our schools now that we defied the insurgents and have remained in school,” they said.
