The Federal Ministry of Education has called on school administrators, students and stakeholders to be security conscious towards ensuring the safety of lives and property.
Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Sonny Echono, made the call in Abuja at a one-day enlightenment meeting on “Education in Emergency, Preparedness and Response for Civic Education Teachers in Federal Government Colleges”.
Echono stressed the need to prepare staff and students for emergencies in schools, adding that preparing for emergencies required “careful planning ahead as well as creating awareness through enlightenment programmes”.
He said that the increasing rate of insecurity in the country was “heightened by the overwhelming student population in the colleges and complicated by the absence of well-built perimeter fencing”.
Echono said it was, therefore, imperative to staff and students of Unity Colleges to take proactive steps to avoid the unknown.
“Over the years and up till now, Nigeria has witnessed myriad of emergencies as a nation. Intermittent disasters have taken toll on our colleges.
“Some of the emergency situations include over flooding, fire disasters, virus epidemics and breakdown of law and order,” he said.
He recalled that the epidemics at Queens’ College, Lagos that claimed the lives of three students, was as a result of inadequate response to the situation by the authority.
Earlier, Mrs. Justin Ibe, Director, Education Support Services in the ministry, said the inadequate security measures in schools called for increased preparedness to respond to emergencies.
Ibe, however, said the workshop would afford stakeholders the opportunity to take conscious steps to prevent disasters and ensure the safety of students.
