Securing our schools

The safety of students in any school has always been a major issue. The concern has exponentially increased over the years following increased violence from within and outside the school system.

Keeping schools safe encourages parents to enrol their children in schools.

The lack of security in schools brings about drop outs and lack of concentration.

Major findings show that insecurity of school environment significantly affects the academic performance of students.

Nigeria endorsed the international Safe Schools Declaration in March 2015, as a commitment to safeguard education during armed conflict. It ratified it in 2019, making a commitment that it would implement the provisions therein. Under the declaration, Nigeria is obliged to ensure programmes and policies to prevent and respond to attacks against schools and to fight impunity for such attacks.

Unfortunately, series of abduction of school children has exposed the government’s failure to ensure security in our schools as provided in the declaration.

The government should ensure schools are safe for conducive learning. This should be done by taking physical measures, installing security systems, ensuring effective management of visitors in schools, providing schools with tools and software for security and training of staff for the purpose of securing schools.

If we could implement these measures many schools would be secure and our children would be able to learn in a conducive environment.

Aisha Abdullahi, Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri