Boko Halal: Borno’s mega schools renew hopes of Boko Haram orphans

One of the worst effects of the seven-year old Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria is the large population of orphans it has produced in Borno State.  Thousands of parents have been killed by the militants, creating a frightening population of orphans amidst a huge humanitarian crisis. The Borno State Commissioner for Education, Musa Inuwa […]

One of the worst effects of the seven-year old Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria is the large population of orphans it has produced in Borno State.  Thousands of parents have been killed by the militants, creating a frightening population of orphans amidst a huge humanitarian crisis.

The Borno State Commissioner for Education, Musa Inuwa Kubo, said 56,000 children orphaned by Boko Haram have been registered, and are the only ones captured in the register, as many may not have been discovered for registration, even as the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Barr. Kaka Shehu Lawan, a few months ago, said there were over 70,000 orphans in the state.

The condition of the orphans is described as most appalling and more pathetic than that of other orphans who only lost parents, but may still have relations alive to care for them, but majority of the children orphaned by Boko Haram have lost both parents and relations, with no one to care for them.

Their feeding and other needs seem being well handled at the IDP camps but the state government, national and international agencies and organizations are still worried about their education.

As a result, the state government devised educational programmes for them by  establishing two types of schools to assist  them out of their trauma.

One of the programmes is the boarding primary and secondary school for which three schools are under construction at Gomari, Baga Road and 303 Housing Estate, all in Maiduguri metropolis.

The other is the Mega School Programme  under which 21 mega schools, many of which have already been built, are to facilitate the actualization of the special system of primary and junior secondary education for the orphans.

Nine of the schools are in Maiduguri metropolis where majority of the orphans are kept in about 16 IDP camps and host communities, while the remaining 12 are sited in areas considered safe across the state.

“With restoration of sufficient peace and security at other Boko Haram troubled locations, the schools will be built within the communities for which they have been designated, the schools cannot be sited in  insecure communities,” Musa Kubo said.

The Deputy Governor, Alhaji Usman Mamman Durkwa, said recently that each of the schools would admit at least 1,000  orphans, but the education commissioner said each would admit no fewer than 2,000.

All the school needs of the orphans are to be met by the state government but agencies,   NGOs and other stakeholders may assist with some contributions.

Majority of the students will be enrolled from the designated official and unofficial IDP camps (host communities) with other orphans from across the country and  neighboring countries.

“Apart from the nine in Maiduguri metropolis, we now have mega schools in Bayo, Shani, Hawul, Biu and I think one other somewhere, numbering about five, these are so far the ones outside Maiduguri,” the Deputy Director of Information in the state Ministry of Education, Hadiza Bukar, said.

“These schools are principally for children orphaned by Boko Haram, but children of  indigent parents can also be admitted.

“Every other child can be admitted there, so long as he or she is qualified for the school according to the cardinal purpose of the programme, you cannot deny other children, so long as they are qualified.”

 “We have not started enrollment yet, because the construction and installation of all necessary structures and facilities have not been completed, but you can go round and see that the construction of the physical structures has reached advanced stage, we expect everything to be fully in place before September, so we expect to start enrolling by September, this means that if the project is completed before then, we pick up immediately from there.

“Enrollment of qualified IDP orphans into the schools is not going to be any problem to us because they are spread all over, not just in the designated camps and host communities, we know them, we have their statistics. Nobody should worry about how and where we will catch them, we have their list, they are over 50,000, you may say about 70,000, but we can assure every stakeholder in the education and proper upbringing of these orphans that the Borno State government will sustain its commitment to the children according to international standards, and will commit every available resource to that.”

Dr. Muhammad Sani Idris El-Bulaturee, a prominent Maiduguri-based educationist and Director of the El-Kanemi College of Islamic Theology, said: “The mega schools system is a highly commendable initiative by the state government because it at least expresses its  commitment to the proper upbringing of  children orphaned by Boko Haram, the programme shows that the state government is fully aware of the dangers inherent in abandoning children half educated, more so that these children are in most pathetic situations,” he said.

 “However, the curriculum and syllabus should be different from those of the normal school system because you are handling an exceptionally different set of children in terms of their state of mind, these are children traumatized by bereavement, they have lost both parents, most of them their parents and even their relations have been wiped out, so they need not just education, but well-guided education.

“So psychologists and guidance counselors should be employed to play a crucial part in the guided education of these children so that their proper education is founded on and goes hand-in-hand with the proper erasing of whatever trauma that may impede their education.

“I would strongly advise that although the mega schools are primarily meant for  Boko Haram orphaned children, they should however not segregate against other children, especially from indigent backgrounds, they should also qualify for enrolment there, because they also deserve proper education.

“The schools should really not be wholly Boko Haram orphaned children because one, seeing themselves only and no other child with living parents in the school would keep on reminding them of their situation, it would create an impression in them that they have been quarantined like an anathema, which will sustain their trauma, and by and large negate the purpose for which the programme was fashioned out, and the public would have the justification to refer to the schools as schools  for  orphans, because only orphans are enrolled there.

“It is an excellent initiative, but the state government has a huge responsibility on its shoulders to ensure that nothing makes it to fail or falter as it focuses on achieving the purpose, because there will be challenges which must be surmounted,” he added.

Mallam Idrisa Umara, a teacher of 30 years’ experience, said: “I am afraid, there will be huge challenges because the process will be very delicate to carry on. The teachers to teach in those specialized schools have to be specialized themselves, and they have to be well paid and adequately catered for with special conditions of service to ensure that they midwife the transition of these traumatized orphans to proper education and upbringing.

“My cause of worry is the politicization of employment whereby instead employing the specially trained and sufficiently experienced teachers to handle these children, this or that commissioner, this or that senator or House of Representatives member, this or that traditional ruler and so on will be asked to bring their candidates for teaching jobs in the schools on the expectation that the teachers there would be well paid and catered for by government,” he said as he expressed hope that the mega schools would not create mega social problems and mega conduit pipes for siphoning public funds.