Why Jigawa schools are still safe despite insecurity – Commissioner

The Jigawa state government has unveiled the secret behind the safety of its schools that have never experienced any form of security challenge.

This is coming amidst increasing rates of schools’ raid, kidnapping and students’ abductions in schools particularly in parts of some northwestern and north central states.

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The state Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Lawan Yunusa Danzomo, who was represented by a Director in the Ministry, Dr Abbas A. Abbas, disclosed this in Kano at a one day sensitization meeting on Safe School Declaration (SSD) and stepdown training for Kano and Jigawa states.

The meeting was organised by development Research and Training Centre (dRPC) won Thursday, with support from Ford Foundation, to sensitise stakeholders on ways of ensuring schools’ safety in 13 states the project is working in.

According to the Commissioner, the state was at the meeting to share its experience on steps taken to make its schools safe, security and health-wise.

He said, “First of all we believe in prayers, then we identified the challenges of insecurity in these schools. So, we fenced our schools, manned them with security agents and even installed street lights in them, and even sensitized students and staff in them.

“We toured all these schools, discussed with their heads and other stakeholders, then provided over 212 security men, and provided verve wires on the fences. We have also deployed military personnel in schools at border communities of Maigatari, Gwaram, Birniwa and Babura to avoid intrusion,” the Commissioner added.

Earlier, the dRPC Education Program Officer, Zubaida Abdussalam, said the centre has so far stepped down the SSD to government stakeholders, principals, students and community members in Kano and Jigawa states.

She also said that the centre has supported 13 states to conduct stepdown trainings at community levels, adding that the challenges of keeping schools safe vary from one region to another.

“In the south, there are issues of rape and cultism, while in the north, it is more of schools’ attack in form of abductions and kidnappings. We realised that students and schools do not even know some key practices that they should maintain in their schools and what children could do in cases of emergencies,” Zubaida added.

She explained that the centre had through the program trained the students in evacuation drills, as well as encouraged peer to peer training for the students to train their colleagues.