After the Chibok schoolgirls abduction in 2014, the Federal Government launched the safer school’s initiative to better protect students in school. Despite this laudable achievement, several students have been kidnapped from schools ever since. Many have wondered why the problem persist and why would students be the prime targets. This heightened doubts about the feasibility of the initiative coupled with several allegations that have been made about the management of funds earmarked for the initiative. The safer school initiative had Borno, Adamawa and Yobe as pilot states because of their peculiar security challenges and experiences. Years after, other states such as Kaduna, Niger and Zamfara have had their fair share of insecurity leading to the kidnap of students from schools while Plateau State have also had record of security breach within school community with various sad stories.

On this edition of the programme, we shall be gleaning on basic learnings from the safe school initiative that private and community schools can adapt to ensure that schools are kept in the face of increasing insecurity across the country. The initiative has the following practical steps to keep students safe in school;

A. School-based interventions

B. Community interventions to protect schools; and

C. Special measures for at-risk populations.

This comes with various effects on education across volatile communities.

Consequently, available statistics indicate, nearly 6.3 million or 60% of the 10.5 million Nigerian out of school children live in northern Nigeria where kidnap of students from schools has been more prevalent over the years. There are also huge geographical disparities between the percentage of out of school children in the Northeast, which is 30 times greater than the percentage in the Southeast and 60% of these are girls from Northern Nigeria.

In view of all these, what is the impact on education in Northern Nigeria? what is the effect on the turnout of students across volatile areas? What are the likely school based interventions that can be applied to ensure students are kept safe while in school? What are some likely community interventions that can help protect school children? What are the uncertainties of school proprietors and parents / Guardians in this challenging times? What is the way forward? What lessons can be learnt and adapted by school in Jos and environs from these experiences?

All these and many more will form the basis of our discussion on today’s edition of Building Bridges.