Special report: What lies in the future for displaced children? (video, pictures)
– Schools attended by the displaced children were destroyed by the insurgents and most camps across the nation do not have sufficient schools
– Parents want their children to go back to school and acquire quality education
– Olabunmi Olaniyan, a child rights activist, called for adequate security in schools across the Northern Nigeria
Children are being used within the ranks of Boko Haram as combatants, cooks, porters and look outs. Young women and girls are being subjected to forced marriage, forced labour and rape.
Students and teachers have been deliberately targeted with more than 300 schools damaged or destroyed, and at least 196 teachers and 314 school children killed by the end of 2015.
Beyond the widespread killing, many children a have been displaced and orphaned by these terrorist acts. Most children in the affected areas find themselves severely traumatized, while many are wounded or forced to live on the streets.
Most schools in the region have been destroyed or shut down.
Some of the Internally displaced children in a camp in Abuja
READ ALSO: Rivers of blood: Amaechi, Wike and a history of violence (pictured)
According to UNESCO, Nigeria now has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children due to the terrorists’ activities. This is a major area of concern for the Nigerian government.
Around 800,000 children have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict in northeast Nigeria between Boko Haram, military forces and civilian self-defence groups according to the UNICEF report.
The abduction of more than 200 girls in Chibok is only one of the numberless tragedies being replicated on an epic scale across Nigeria and the region. Scores of girls and boys have gone missing in the region: abducted, recruited by armed groups, attacked, used as weapons, or forced to flee the violence.
Effects on education
The ripple effect of the Boko Haram insurgency has led to a situation in which expenditure on education has increasingly dwindled over the years.
This was occasioned by the pressing need to allocate more funds to security, to the detriment of other sectors of the economy, education included.
Internally displaced children
Another fall-out from the ceaseless attacks on government institutions, including educational ones, is the loss of trained teachers who are either maimed, killed or prefer to give schools a wide berth as a result of the indiscriminate attacks on them by Boko Haram operatives, who attack schools at random.
Many Nigerians have had to cross into Cameroon and Chad to escape the wrath of the sect and enjoy relative peace.
Academic Performance
Academic activities are disrupted intermittently as a result of sporadic attacks on educational facilities. The government has had to shut down schools in order to forestall sudden attacks on them by Boko Haram insurgents.
The Boko Haram attacks also culminate in students’ poor performance because learning is accompanied by threat in the school environment of the north, whereas it is well known that learning thrives most in an environment devoid of threat. Any society troubled by violence will not be conducive to social interaction in the form of teaching and learning.
Destruction of School Facilities
Bombing and shooting by Boko Haram insurgents has destroyed school facilities which were grossly inadequate in the first instance due to poor funding by government.
This portends grave consequences for effective teaching and learning which is always hampered by inadequate educational facilities.
The unabated attacks by the Boko Haram sect have occasioned untold hardship on Nigerian people especially in the northern region of the country. They have also succeeded in destabilizing the economic, social, political, religious and cultural lives of the people of the region.
In short, the intractable problem has led to the categorization of Nigeria as a failing state.
Government efforts so far suggest that the war on terror is gradually being won, and the nation waits with bated breath to enjoy the peace that goes along with victory over Boko Haram.
READ ALSO: Analysis: How safe are Nigerian schools?
Friends getting playful
Their plight
On a visit to some IDP camps in the FCT, NAIJ.com reports that the displaced children and parents are anxiously looking forward to going back to their homes to have a proper education like their contemporaries in other parts of the country.
Yunusa Buba, a 10-year-old pupil from Gwoza, narrating his ordeal said the education acquired in the temporary school in the camp cannot be compared to the education back at home.
He called on the government to intensify the fight against Boko Haram so that he and others can go back to school and their homes. He said life in the camp is not as comfortable as it was back in Gwoza.
According to Aishatu Jibril: “Before I and my family were displaced by Boko Haram in Gwoza, I was a primary 3 student and we were properly taught, but here in the camp, the situation is different: we don’t get the kind of education we get back at home.”
“The life generally in the camp is not comfortable. We don’t eat the way we should and I plead that the government should eradicate Boko Haram as soon as possible so that we can go back home and have a normal life as Nigerians,” she said.
Watch the video below:
Ladi Nuhu, a mother-of-six, told NAIJ.com: “My father and sister were killed by Boko Haram back in Gwoza. I managed to escape with my five children and I was also seven month pregnant. It was not easy to get away from the terrorist but I was able to with the help of God.”
“Right now in the camp, life is not easy at all. Our leather roofs are leaking we don’t have a place to fetch water. Our children are hungry and they have all been dropped out of school. They don’t have access to proper education in a class room. What we have in the camp is not comfortable. I want my children to get proper education.”
Aisha Umoru, a parent, said: “I want my children to go to a proper school like it was back in Gwoza. I don’t want their education to be cut short. We are pleading to the government to intensify the fight against Boko Haram so we can go back home.”
“I want the government to help our children get back to school because this is the only tool that can empower them in the future. We are pleading that Boko Haram should be phased out so we can live a good and normal life again, even though some of us who lost our loved ones can never be the same again,” Talatu Yakubu said.
IDP CAMP
Recommendations
Speaking to NAIJ.com, a child education activist Olabunmi Olaniyan said government should adopt other proactive measures to redress the Boko Haram devastation.
She said efforts should be geared towards re-orientation of the masses, especially in the northern part of Nigeria, on the importance of education as an instrument for national development:
READ ALSO: Where is Justice for the 640 slain in Maiduguri?
“The almajiri education component of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme should be adequately funded and properly monitored to ensure the successful delivery of education which can have profound effect on the lives of almajiris who are easily manipulated and turned into weapons by the rich people of the north to fight their selfish cause.
“Federal government should also adopt policies which lead to creation of jobs to assuage the feelings of disaffected youths who get easily tempted to fight against institutions as a result of their frustrations,” she said.
She called on the government to give incentives to teachers, especially in the northern parts of the country, such as special allowances to compensate them for the untold hardship they have suffered as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency as she believes this will ensure a high rate of retention of teachers in the school system.
Ms. Olaniyan added that the federal government should ensure that educational facilities are adequately secured, especially in the northern states, to forestall attacks on the schools which claim the lives of pupils and their teachers alike, while also leading to the wanton destruction of school facilities.
The post Special report: What lies in the future for displaced children? (video, pictures) appeared first on Nigeria News today & Breaking news | Read on NAIJ.COM.