United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has hinted that only 29 percent of schools in the three states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States have teachers with minimum and required qualifications to teach.
The UNICEF Chief of Maiduguri Field Office, Phuong T. Nguyen stated this while speaking during the media dialogue to amplify the achievements of global partnership for education accelerated funding in Maiduguri.
Nguyen, who attributed the situation to several factors, said the devastating impact of poverty, insecurity and COVID-19 pandemic has further helped in deteriorating access to quality education in the region.
She equally stated that across the three states among others in the region, the average pupil-teacher ratio is 124 to one teacher.
“Almost half of all schools need rehabilitation. Only 47% Of schools in Borno have furniture with lower proportions in Yobe (32%) and Adamawa (26%).
“In Adamawa, only 30% of schools have adequate learning material for pupils with lower proportions of 26% in Borno and 25% in Yobe State. It is therefore little wonder that, according to Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS 2021) less than half of children (48.6%) complete their primary school education in North-east Nigeria.
“About 1.9 million boys, girls and youth affected by the conflict are without access to basic quality education in the region. This is inclusive of 56% of all displaced children who are out of school, ” she said.
The organisation she said has through Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Accelerated Funding (AF) project supported towards addressing the challenges of qualified teachers and infrastructure in the region.
“This is an initiative of the federal government of Nigeria, through the federal Ministry of Education, the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) and the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). The training programme has supported over 18, 000 unqualified teachers working in North-east Nigeria to study and pass the ATRCN’s qualifying examination.
“Last Saturday, these teachers were inducted and licensed across Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. The 12-month course was funded by the GPE AF and supported by UNICEF, Teaching at the Right Level (TARL) Africa and the Nigeria Union of Teachers. first training of its kind targeting a large cohort of teachers in Nigeria.”
