United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for the provision of security tips for communities to strengthen the safety of schools during emergencies.
The UNICEF chief of Borno Field Office, Phuong Nguyen, made the call yesterday during a panel discussion on school safety to mark the 10th anniversary of the abducted 276 Chibok school girls held in Maiduguri, the state capital.
Nguyen said the best way to strengthen security in schools is to ensure that all partners play their roles and avoid the duplication and overlapping of programmes.
Represented by the education officer UNICEF Maiduguri, Mr Adamu Bulama, Nguyen said, “UNICEF advocates for funding in such a way that every partner receives the fund and ensures that security is improved in schools.
“To ensure that schools are safe, community members have to be fully informed that safety of schools is part of their responsibilities. They should be provided with skills they need to be able to respond to emergencies whenever it occurs.”
Discussants at the symposium said the abduction of the 276 Chibok school girls in 2014 has been an eye opener for the government to beef up security around schools, saying that schools are relatively safe from abduction, but incidents keep emerging and other types of social vices are still cropping up, hence the need for adequate security.
They called for more awareness and the need to train students on safety tips. “We cannot limit the safety of schools to abduction, but there shouldn’t be complacency. We need to strengthen what we are doing to ensure total safety of schools,” they said.
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