Group harps on full implementation of safe school declaration

From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

An organization under the auspices of Community Outreach for Educational Change (COEC) has called for full implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration (SSD), in the country.
The Executive Director //COEC Model Schools’ Manager Ms. Blessing Swanta Bonat asserted this during a Training of Trainers’ (TOT) workshop on Safe Schools Implementation in Nigeria.
According to her because of the lack of an effective and coordinated partnership between the government, CSOs, and other relevant stakeholders in implementing the SSD, the programs have been limited, leading to a lower demand for accountability from the government.
Ms Blessing Swanta Bonat further explained the idea of safe schools was adopted in Nigeria in 2019 when President Muhammadu Buhari signed the SSD Safe Schools Declaration ratification document
This, according to her ushered Nigeria into membership of the global commitment of countries to ensure that schools are safe not just for students but for education personnel and all school users.
“And so we are talking to them about the Minimum Standards for Safe Schools, the National Policy on Safety, Security and Violence-Free Schools.
“ We are talking to them about how to ensure that this school functions as a safe school so that eventually, others can see. We are a model school, and eventually, others can see how it needs to be done so that everywhere, starting from Southern Kaduna, all schools are safe for children to keep learning.”
The training has objectives to include: training the trainees who will in turn train schools around Jei
(Agwan Gaiya) District on Safe Schools for effective dissemination in Zangon Kataf LGA and Southern Kaduna as a whole has 19 Staff, 11 Learners, a representative of the Parent Staff Conference of the school and the Executive Director of COEC in attendance.
Yakuhu Kubai Precious, the President of COEC Model Schools described the seminar as quite fantastic.
“ I learned that the Safe Schools Declaration is a global commitment of countries to support and protect schools, teachers and other learning centres from attacks.
“We also learned that the Nigerian Federal Government signed the document of joining the program in December 2019. We learned about the Minimum Standards for Safe Schools which we have the school infrastructure, that is, the things that are found in a school and that education is a fundamental human right which is that everybody has equal rights.”
Similarly, the school Administrator Ms. Tabitha Ibrahim disclosed that participants learned about how the school can be safe and be a conducive environment for our learners. We are learning about the hazards and how we can protect our learners from hazards.
In his remarks PSC Chairman, Benjamin Bartholomew Opined that workshop is very interesting, especially because they are trying to teach the staff and the students how to stay safe and the environment.
“ It is a global program by the federal government on how to save schools.
Seeing the importance of this program, we want to plead with the federal government to put things in place for the proper implementation of the Safe Schools.”