Concerned about the number of Covid-19-related out-of-school children and the security issues brought on by the actions of murderous Fulani herdsmen, the Enugu State Government, in partnership with UNICEF, has launched a campaign called Back-to-School with the goal of encouraging the displaced children who stopped attending school to enrol in classes again.
Some parents were unable to re-enroll their kids and wards in school because of the Covid-19 pandemic's detrimental effects on small enterprises. Furthermore, those villages that were being assaulted by roaming Fulani herders frequently fled their homes, which caused their kids and other dependents to stop attending school.
Through the Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board, the Enugu State Government and UNICEF developed a programme to ensure that the affected children return to school in order to ensure the children's education continues.
Children from communities in the local government councils of Aninri and Isi-Uzo were chosen for the event, and according to a representative of the State Ministry of Education, the kids have already been sent back to their local schools to start classes.
And to encourage them, education materials, including school bags, exercise books, pencils; school sandals, among other things, were distributed to them at the ceremony attended by traditional rulers from the affected local government areas.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Uchenna Eze explained that the government embarked on the programme because they don’t want any child of school age in the state to be out of school, saying that any of them could be great in future hence the need to give them the opportunity to develop their God-given talents.
Represented by Chukwudi Onah, a director in the ministry, the commissioner commended UNICEF for partnering with the state in the laudable programme, assuring that the government would continue to support the programme because of the high premium it attaches to education.
In his own speech, the chairman of Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board, ESUBEB, Chief Ikeji Asogwa disclosed that Enugu State was number one in the states with low out-of-school children but has dropped to number two in the last two years as a result of Covid-19 and insecurity, hence the need for the campaign to ensure that no child is out of school and to restore the state to its number one position.
Represented by a member of the board, Hon. Beloved Dan Agbo Anike, the chairman, explained that due to the vested interest of the state government in education, the board has successfully renovated and furnished over 1000 schools while renovation for over 300 schools are ongoing.
“The threat of insecurity in Isi Uzo Council Area is one of the reasons we have these children here who are out of school. But we are returning them to schools to develop them to be useful to themselves and the society,” he explained.
Anike called on the Federal Government to hand over the running of primary schools to states and local governments because, according to him, each state has its own peculiar problems and programmes, saying that generalizing the running of education is not achieving the targets for some states.
He also noted that there has been a drop in community participation in running schools, resulting in shortage of public schools, and called on communities to embark on building of schools to increase access to education in the rural areas.