The Exam Ethics Marshals International (EEMI), a Non Profit Organisation, has lauded the country’s security agencies, on efforts put in place to ensure the Safe School preparedness plans.
The Founder, EEMI, Mr. Ike Onyechere, made the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday, in Abuja.
According to him, security agencies have been coming together each year to update education leaders on how to refocus their safe school preparedness plans, strategies, tactics and programmes, based on emerging developments.
He added that this was to ensure the resolution of the safe schools challenges in the country.
“Security agencies are highly commended for the annual platform, which now provides institutions with firsthand information for reviewing and refocusing safe school best practices.
He said, “Education stakeholders across the country have observed that the synergy, collective action and teamwork among security agencies and professionals, through the annual safe school consultative conference with education leaders, are yielding good results”.
“It is true that, schools have become targets of choice for criminals and that attacks on schools have been on the increase,” he said. According to him, it is also true that the scale of the challenge and the efforts required to protect school communities are also huge.
“There are over 300,000 pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher institutions with over 5,000,000 teaching and non-teaching staff and over 40 million pupils and students across Nigeria.
“Huge security, organisational logistical and personnel efforts are required to sustain the safety and security of this huge community, on daily basis against the background that each and every school is now a target,” he said.
Onyechere added that the efforts to protect the schools could only be achieved through interagency security collaboration. He said that the 2021 edition of the programme would hold in Abuja from Nov. 22 to Nov. 25.
“Beyond serving the purpose of providing information and sharing ideas, the conference also serves as platform for distributing safe school capacity-building resource materials, to schools in collaboration with sponsors.
“Materials distributed in past conferences include 350,000 copies of Safe School manuals, books, training videos among others.
“Leveraging the opportunity of past training conferences, UNESCO thankfully sponsored the distribution of the Safe School manuals to selected schools in Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba States, while Premium Pensions Limited sponsored distribution to schools across the country,” he added.
He commended the Ebonyi Government for sponsoring the distribution of the manuals to teachers in the state, while some tertiary institutions facilitated distribution to their staff and students.
NAN also reports that the annual Safe School Consultative Conference, since its launch in 2014, have been featuring presentations by Nigeria Police, Nigeria Army and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
He also listed the Federal Fire Service, Federal Road Safety Corps and the National Emergency Management Agency, as part of stakeholders who had also featured presentations.(NAN)
