In the last 11 months, 5,474 primary and secondary schools in Nigeria have joined the Safe School Project, marking a huge step towards improving student and teacher safety.
However, an alarming 2,851 of these schools lack basic security measures.
The Safe School Project is managed by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
Following the 2014 abduction of 276 girls from their school in Chibok, northeastern Borno State, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, launched the Safe Schools Initiative at the World Economic Forum Africa, in collaboration with the Nigerian Global Business Coalition for Education and private sector leaders.
The effort includes a mix of school-based activities, community interventions to protect schools and particular measures for populations at risk.
Teachers, students, and other school community members will also receive basic safety and security training as part of the project.
Due to the return of mass abductions of students, the Safe School portal, www.nssrcc.gov.ng, was launched last September to streamline school registration and allow for rapid and coordinated reactions from security agencies in the event of an assault.
According to data from an app developed to monitor school registrations for the project via its webpage, nearly half of the registered schools lack basic security features like fences, gates, and security guards.
It reads, “5,474 registered schools – 2,623 schools with basic security measures and 2,851 schools without basic security measures.”
The Commander of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre, Hammed Abodunrin, highlighted the challenges faced in encouraging schools to register and comply with security requirements.
“What we do now is to go to schools ourselves. It appears that many school managers do not understand the process or do not want to register,” Abodunrin explained.
The Commander further noted, “Out of the 5,474 schools, over 4,000 were registered by our personnel from various local governments across the country.”
A Security consultant and the Managing Director, Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited, Kabir Adamu, emphasised the heightened vulnerability of schools lacking basic security measures.
“The vulnerability exists. The threat elements exist in those schools. It is not acceptable. Risk management says where you have a viable threat; your mitigation measures or security systems must be adequate to lower the risk.
“The students in those schools are easily exposed to attacks and abductions because of security management practices,” Adamu stated.