Get involved to boost school safety, youths urged

Chairman of the School Based Management Committee (SBMC), Dr Ibrahim Yusuf has said the safety of schools, students and their teachers should not be made the business of the government alone but should involve youths and the entire communities where the institutions are located.

Yusuf who stated this in Abuja during a one day sensitisation and step down training funded by the Development Research and Projects Centre (DRPC) and the Ford Foundation for schools and stakeholders on safe schools, said there is also need to involve the traditional and religious leaders as well.

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“Now is the time the government realised that they cannot resolve the problems of insecurity alone, it is crucial for everyone to know that we all are stakeholders in the matter of security, every stakeholder must speak out at the right time they see something,” he said.

The FCT Safe School Declaration Team lead, Dr Alimigbe Francis, said the workshops were carried along the process of implementing minimum standards for safe schools, the roles of teachers and community members in safeguarding learners, school emergency preparedness and response and evacuation drill.

“All these are geared towards achieving the objectives of the training through increasing the knowledge base of school leadership teams on Safe School Declaration outcomes for transfer to their various schools as well as enhance the capacity of teachers to transfer demonstrable SSD knowledge, skills and practice at their community levels.”

Speaking, the Director of FCT Universal Basic Education Commission, Mrs Okoro Helen, said the programme is to help learners in emergency situations in schools across the six area councils of the federal capital territory and to enable teachers to disseminate the lessons from the workshop to their other colleagues.

Also, a student of Junior Secondary school Jabi, Abuja said the workshop has empowered her with skills and knowledge on how teachers can protect students and how students can protect themselves in school.