By Musa Umar Bologi
Abuja
A world leading independent organisation for children, Save the Children, has said that 611 teachers were killed and 19,000 displaced while over 1,200 schools destroyed due to activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the North east.
The organisation, which disclosed this in Abuja in a statement by its Media Coordinator, James Bigila, said its research revealed that one school was attacked every two days of the conflict.
It said there is a symptomatic education crisis spread across the Lake Chad region bedevilled by insurgency, leading to about 19.7 million children out of school, which a quarter of the world’s estimated 59 million out-of-school children.
It said around 80 percent of some one million children displaced by the conflict are living in remote host communities with little or no access to education.
“This insurgency is based on an ideology that western education is evil and that children, teachers and schools are all legitimate targets.
“The consequences have been record lows in enrolment, terrible literacy rates and arguably the worst education crisis in the world. We cannot stand by as an entire generation of children loses its right to go to school.”
“The situation is particularly dire for girls. While the average Nigerian can expect to receive nine years of schooling, that figure drops to just two years for girls in the north-east
“More than half of the 700 children attending one Save the Children pre-school programme in Borno state in January 2017, were aged six or older with many teenagers aged up to 15.
Country Director for Save the Children Nigeria, Ben Foot, said this “desperate quest for education reflects the hunger of children for knowledge that is not being met, which he described as heart-breaking”.
Save the Children said its pre-school facilities, which are only funded to cater for children under five, is adapting programmes to meet the unexpected demand, but it is only a stop-gap that cannot answer the long term need.
With a severe shortage of trained teachers, displaced parents now volunteer as a teacher at Save the Children’s early childhood care classes in places like Madinatu host community.
