The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has tasked the Federal Government to secure schools in providing conducive learning environment for every child in the country.
According to the Fund, secured schools could increase girls’ enrolment, retention, and completion of their education at all levels.
UNICEF’s Country representative, Peter Hawkins, disclosed this, yesterday (Thursday), in Maiduguri to mark the Boko Hara abduction of 276 Chibok school girls on April 14, 2014 in Borno state.
The girls were abducted at Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, while writing their national examinations.
“Today marks eight years since the first known attack on a learning institution in Nigeria on 14 April 2014,” he said, adding that the students were abducted by a non-state armed group.
He said that since then, there are spate of attacks on schools and abductions of students; resulting into their deaths;
Besides, he added that it has become recurrent in the last two years, particularly in the North-West and North-Central regions of Nigeria.
He noted that since December 2020, 1,436 school children and 17 teachers have been abducted from schools with the killing of 16 children.
Continuing; he said: “Unsafe schools, occasioned by attacks on schools and abduction of students, are reprehensible and brutal,” adding that the attacks have violated the rights of the victims to education and totally unacceptable.
He declared that the occurrences have cut short the futures and dreams of the affected students.
According to him, a total of 11, 536 schools were closed since December 2020 due to abductions and security issues.
He noted that these risks have perpetuated the cycles of poverty and inequality among actors on school security.
