UNESCO DONATES
650 SAFE SCHOOL KITS TO SCHOOLS
IN BAUCHI, GOMBE AND TARABA STATES
The efforts of Federal Government and
the Governments of Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba states to enhance safety and
security of schools have received a boost from United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organizations, UNESCO.
12 Primary Schools, 10 Junior Secondary
Schools, 10 Senior Secondary Schools, State Universal Education Board, State
Emergency Management Agency, offices from each of the three states will receive
the kits and participate in the training programme.
The Safe School Kit and Safe School
Workshop are components of the Safe School Manual Project (SSMP) being
implemented under a Public Private Partnership framework by Exam Ethics
Marshals International, a non- governmental organization dedicated to promotion
of best practices in education since 1996.
The SSMP which was initiated in 2011 is
implemented with the support and collaboration of the Nigeria Police Force,
Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Federal Fire Service, National
Emergency Management Agency, Association of General and Medical Practitioners
of Nigeria. The Ministry of Police Affairs and Police Service Commission
supported the enabling summits and workshops for the production of the kits
organized between 2011 and 2013.
The SSMP has four major objectives. The
first is provide teachers, parents and students with comprehensive body of
knowledge on safe school skills in a simple straight forward language and
format that make for easy understanding, application and reference. The second
objective is to empower school communities with specific safe school dos and
don’ts that will enhance their safety and their ability to assist security
agencies against the background that security is everybody’s business. Thirdly,
the SSMP provides schools with enabling information and skills to conduct
customized risk and threat assessment audits of their schools. Finally, the
SSMP provides schools with templates for formulation of school emergency
response plans, for establishment of School Emergency Response Teams and
Incident Command Systems that are called into operation in periods of crises.
The Safe School kit contains the Safe School Manual, Instructional Video DVD,
Audio CD and a Hand Sanitizer.
The distribution of Safe School kits to
schools across the country was flagged off at National Universities Commission
Auditorium on August 1, 2014 by the former Honourable Minister of State for
Education, Barr Nyeson Wike, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike
Ekweremadu, the SSA to the President on Youth and Student Affairs Comrade Jude
Imagwe. Security Agencies, the Media and other stakeholders also attended the
flag off.
Since the flag off in August, a total
of 10,350 (ten thousand three and
fifty) kits have been distributed to
proprietors, principals, teachers, students and other stakeholders across the
country as climax of Zonal Safe School
Training Workshops held in Gombe (28 October), Kano (30 October), Awka (11
November) and Calabar (13 November). A total 2,539 principal officers of
schools have participated in the workshops since the flag off.
The SSMP has been adjudged by
stakeholders as the most important and strategic contribution by a
non-governmental organization to the effort to galvanize stakeholders to work
together to build capacity for safe schools in Nigeria against the background
that schools have become targets of choice for insurgency, kidnapping and other
criminal activities.
All education stakeholders are being
inspired to rise and join in the battle for Safe Schools because educational
institutions have become deadly battle fronts in the war declared on Nigeria by
insurgents. The battle for safe schools
is a matter of life and death, a challenge of collective responsibility that
calls for collective action. No
stakeholder has the luxury of sitting back and watching because no person knows
where the next attack will go off or who the next victim will be. This is why UNESCO stands highly commended
for sponsoring the distribution of Safe School Kits to schools in emergency
states.
INSCRIBED BY:
Ike Onyechere, MFR
Founding
Chairman, Exam Ethics Marshals International
& National
Task Team Leader, Safe School Manual Project.
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