Education commissioners urge partners to support ongoing efforts to ensure security in schools

The commissioners suggested that community members and education ‘stakeholders’ be part of the security architecture to ensuring security in schools in the region and the country.

The Commissioners of Education in the 19 Northern States have urged development partners to support the ongoing efforts to ensure security in schools.

The commissioners made the call in a communique issued in Kaduna on Wednesday, at the end of a meeting on Students Exchange Programme (SEP), held in Kano.

The communique was signed by the Chairman, Shehu Muhammad, who is also the Commissioner of Education, Kaduna State.

The meeting was organised to discuss pressing issues affecting education in the region.

The commissioners suggested that community members and education ‘stakeholders’ be part of the security architecture to ensuring security in schools in the region and the country.

They appealed to the federal, state governments, development partners, parents, non-governmental organisations and community organisations to support ongoing efforts to ensure security in schools.

They also called on state governments to liaise with security agencies to facilitate the conduct of risk assessment by relevant stakeholders on the vulnerability of schools.

The commissioners equally resolved to engage with Federal Ministry of Education and Universal Basic Education Commission in developing the needed strategies to tackle the issue of a National Commission for Secondary Education.

They added that the engagement would also address issues around Better Education Delivery for All, Tsangaya schools and other issues affecting education in the region.

“In doing this, efforts will be made to gain the support and cooperation of all stakeholders to ensure success,” the commissioners said.

The commissioners equally called on the state government to invest in building the administrative capacities of principals and teachers.

This, according to them, can be done through organising a series of workshops and supporting school administrators and teachers to attend courses in the Nigerian Institute of Education and Public Administration.

They also agreed towards entrenching Information and Communication Technology in school administration.

“We also want the state government to conduct regular test and certificate verification of teachers to improve the quality of teaching.

“We equally resolved to intensify the training and retraining of evaluators that are needed in the maintenance of quality of education in our respective states.

“Also, following the disruption of our school calendar by COVID-19 and insecurity, which is no longer uniform across the SEP participating state, we have recommended that the 2021/2022 session should commence in the third quarter of 2021,” they said.

They called on the National Commission for Colleges of Education to strengthen its monitoring and quality improvement of colleges that award NCE.

Written By: Agency

Source: Premium Times

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