Safe School Initiative Designed to fail – Senate President

 Senate President Ahmad Lawan Thursday said the Safe School Initiative programme in Nigeria was designed to fail.

He stated this in Abuja at an investigative hearing organised by the Senate joint committee on education (Basic &Secondary) and Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND on the utilisation of the funding proposed and budgeted for the Safe Schools Initiative.

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The initiative was launched in 2014 during the World Economic Forum on Africa by the Federal Government, in collaboration with the United Nations, to rebuild, srehabilitate and restore normalcy in the education sector.

Lawan was responding to the submissions by the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, that the ministry was not involved in the funding or application of funds for the programme.

Echono had said the Ministry of Finance was in control of the programmer’s funding.

Lawan said: “This programme, Safe School Initiative was designed to fail. What is the meaning of the Ministry of Finance handling this. It was unnecessarily controlled by the Ministry of Finance.

“Ordinarily, I would have thought that the National Council on Education where the Federal Ministry of Education and all the States’ Ministry of Education would come up with a national policy and strategy for Safe School Initiative.

“Rather than Federal Ministry of Finance controlling it, the Ministry of Finance is just to provide fund, appropriated or donated.

“So this programme was designed to fail. And this is why we are where we are today.”