Insecurity: Bane of quality child education

Over 10, 000 black school children had  taken to the streets of Soweto township in South Africa to protest the inferior quality of education that they were receiving from the apartheid regime and also demand their rights to be taught in their own language.The theme of this year’s celebration is, “ A child friendly, quality, […]

Over 10, 000 black school children had  taken to the streets of Soweto township in South Africa to protest the inferior quality of education that they were receiving from the apartheid regime and also demand their rights to be taught in their own language.
The theme of this year’s celebration is, “ A child friendly, quality, free and compulsory education for all children in Africa.”
Every African child has the right to education and not just education but quality education. However, the insecurity being witnessed in the country has become a major factor militating against children’s right to education and having quality education.
This year’s celebration falls at a time when the over 200 girls abducted from their school in Chibok, Borno state on 14 April are still in captivity.
Like the Soweto school children who lost their lives for protesting apartheid inspired education, the girls have being undergoing untold hardships for going to school.
“The incidence is a stark reality of the vulnerability of all Nigerians and  most specially innocent children seeking to actualise their right to education”
Co-coordinator of Human Rights Agenda Network, Hadiza Bala Usman had said in her address titled “A living nightmare: Please find our daughters”  during the  protest march tagged “Rescue for Chibok Girls” from unity square to the National Assembly in Abuja, two weeks after the girl’s abduction.
At the event organized by the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development to commemorate the day, Speaker of the FCT Children’s Parliament, Johnson Ikpeama said , “the Soweto school children were massacred and the Chibok girls were abducted from their  school, the school should not be a place for negative activities  but like the Soweto children are being celebrated, we pray that God will release the Chibok girls and make them celebrated too.”
The plight of the Chibok school girls hung like a shadow on this year’s commemoration of the day, and reverberated in virtually all speeches and messages by world leaders and other stakeholders to mark day.  
In his statement to mark the day, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown called on the world to remember the kidnapped schoolgirls of Chibok. He praised young people around the world as they mobilise to demand education for all.
He said: “Thousands of people have come together united with one cause: safe schools for every girl and boy. While the global community has failed to deliver safe schooling, young people are demanding safe, quality schools for all children everywhere— and stand in solidarity with the northern Nigerian girls of Chibok and all those around the world who face these struggles.”
Children cannot have quality education when there is insecurity. Insecurity makes parents afraid to send their children to school. They also withdraw their children from school in times of crises. While their mates are learning in other places the children remain at home, bushes and refugee camps and their schools are shut.
Much of the time they should spend learning is wasted, and even when they return to school, they can’t learn or study properly for fear of attacks or rumours of attacks on them, their school, family or other loved ones.
Some people have also opined that insecurity is also negatively affecting girl-child education in north. Some parents are just being motivated to send their female children to school. They are now afraid to send them to school for fear of abduction or attacks.
It is therefore important for stringent security measures to be put in place to protect the schools in the north.
Suffice to say insecurity affects children psychologically and emotionally. They are traumatized when they see their mates in schools killed and loose interest in schooling. Some of them are made orphans and lost opportunity of being educated completely.
A child from Yobe state while giving the zonal report of the North East zone at the sitting of the children’s parliament last year complained that they have to leave school for weeks and sometimes months when they get a threat or are attacked.
 “The state of insecurity has really affected the children in-terms of education. Insecurity is seen to be the factor behind the failures recorded in National examinations. The state of emergency declared especially in Yobe where normalcy was returning was uncalled for. Children are being apprehensive of the presence of the military men all over the streets hence they are scared to go to school,” he said.
The children in their resolutions from the sitting had called for the provision of adequate security for schools in the country.
Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina in her address at the event organized by the ministry to commemorate this year’s day said the choice of this year’s theme is timely and apt especially at this time when African children and Nigerian children in particular are facing acts of violence in a bid to access quality education.
She said it is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to provide Nigerian children quality education. She called on development partners, civil society organizations and the private sector to redouble their efforts in providing interventions for quality education for Nigerian children.
Represented by a Deputy Director in the ministry ,  Helen Uji,  she assured the children that despite the challenges, the Nigerian Government is committed to the implementation of strategic programmes geared towards achieving a child-friendly and quality education for children, especially the girl-child. She said all levels of government are imploring security measures to ensure adequate protection of children in their schools, in order to forestall future occurrences of the Chibok incidence.
The minister  called on parents  not to relent in their efforts in sending their girls to school saying the unfortunate Chibok incident should not deter them from commitment to girl child education.
The Unity Schools Old Students’ Association (USOSA) the umbrella body of alumni groups of 104 unity schools in the country also called on the government to make special security arrangement for all schools in the country during their unity walk in Abuja recently.
President-General of the association, Kabiru Nuhu-Koko had said: “The unity walk is a way of showing our disgust with the way insecurity has been allowed to degenerate to a level whereby even should children are not safe in the confines of their school. If parents are afraid to send their children to school what is going to happen to education in Nigeria? No country develops without an educated populace.”