The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed that only 29 per cent of schools in the northeast have teachers with the minimum qualification, representing 71 per cent of schools in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states that are operating with unqualified teachers.
But the Borno state government has said that it has lost more than 400 teachers to the activities of the insurgents in the last 10 years, saying the state is only recovering from the ravages to the education sector in the state.
The UNICEF Chief of Maiduguri Field Office, Phuong Nguyen, spoke on the number of unqualified teachers in the north-east on Wednesday in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, at a media dialogue session to amplify the achievements of the Global Partnership for Education Accelerated Funding project.
The event which was organised by the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with UNICEF, drew participants from various media organisations across the country.
Concerned by the catastrophic destruction of schools and displacement of people including children in the North-east, the Global Partnership on Education (GPE) approved an accelerated fund grant to the tune of $21.4 million for the building and rehabilitation of classrooms, provision of instructional materials and training of teachers in the based states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
Speaking further, the UNICEF Chief of Maiduguri Field Office, Nguyen, described as staggering statistics as she disclosed that across north-east Nigeria, “only 29 per cent of schools have teachers with the minimum qualification.”
She added that the average pupil-teacher ratio is 124 to 1 and that almost half of all schools need rehabilitation. “Only 47 per cent of schools in Borno have furniture with lower proportions in Yobe (32 per cent) and Adamawa (26 per cent).
Nguyen also disclosed that about 1.9 million boys, girls and youth affected by conflict are without access to basic quality education in the region, noting that this is inclusive of 56 per cent of displaced children who are out of school.
She said the challenges of out-of-school children and the learning crises in the education sector remained issues that UNICEF and stakeholders are working to address to ensure that every child has the opportunity that education confers and be equipped with skills to survive and contribute positively to society.
She said: “One major accomplishment is the teacher’s training programme of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Accelerated Funding (AF) project. 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 TRCN’s qualifying examination,” she added.
According to her, 1 million girls and boys would benefit as these newly certified teachers return to their classrooms equipped with modem and effective teaching methods, including the skills to provide gender-sensitive and psychosocial support to learners.
She added that classrooms in at least 50 schools have been renovated and 50 temporary learning spaces constructed while the capacity of 438 education officials has been strengthened on education-in-emergency leadership, and result-based planning and budgeting.
Executive Secretary of Borno State Universal Basic Education Board, Professor Bulama Kagu, lamented that more than 400 teachers were killed in the last 10 years in the catastrophe caused by over a decade of insurgencies in the northeast.
He, however, noted that the state is gradually recovering from the devastation, especially with the quick intervention of the Global Partnership on Education, UNICEF, and other international organisation working in synergy with the Nigerian to see that peace is restored to the region.
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