By Daniels Nwokike, The Sight News
ABUJA-The Federal Ministry of Education has approved the proposal of Security Awareness and Justice Foundation (SAJF), a non-governmental organization, to organize trainings and awareness programmes for Principals and Teachers on how to deal with security challenges in Nigeria’s Unity Schools.
Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu disclosed this while inaugurating a Central Planning Committee on Security Education and Awareness Campaign for Principals and Teachers of Federal Government Colleges.
The minister said that it is a worrisome fact that Nigeria’s educational institutions have for ages become targets of evil elements who have turned to schools to carry out their sinister acts of Kidnapping of school children and teachers in exchange for ransom, violent attacks by cultists in campuses and ritual killing of students.
Adamu noted that while insecurity in schools is not a problem unique to Nigeria alone, partnership by relevant stakeholders in the society in curbing the menace is indispensable as government cannot do it alone, adding that vigilance and proactivity is required from the stakeholders even as government provides an enabling environment for teaching and learning.
“I constitute this committee with the strong conviction that the efforts of the Federal Government will be complemented in combating insecurity and make our schools safe for effective teaching and learning”, he said.
The minister charged the committee to adhere very strictly to the principles guiding financial management so as to derive maximum output from the available scarce resources.
In his response, the chairman of SAJF, Retired Inspector General of Police, Sir Mike Okiro said that since violence in Nigeria’s schools began, teenagers have been the most affected.
He noted that the situation could be attributed to some underlining factors as ignorance, low level of exposure and lack of security awareness, which is why SAJF have chosen to take up the challenge.
He acknowledged that it will be practically impossible to reach every student at once hence the reason to birth security education and awareness programmes in secondary schools.
“We are adopting the ‘Instruct the Instructor’ method in which Principals and teachers of secondary schools would be trained on basic security awareness rubrics in a simulated classroom environment using tested security experts as tutors.
“The teachers shall then be required, after they have been tutored, to go back to their various schools to impart the knowledge they have acquired at the workshop on their students”, he concluded.
