NEARLY half of the primary schools in Borno State have been destroyed by Boko Haram insurgents, who have been terrorising the state and other parts of Nigeria for over a decade, the state governor, Babagana Zulum, has said.
Zulum said the insurgency had resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 persons and the displacement of about two million people in the state.
According to him, the insurgents had destroyed over 5,000 school buildings, comprising primary and secondary schools, and tertiary institutions.
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The insurgents had also killed over 530 teachers and orphaned 52,293 children.
Zulum gave the figures during the week while addressing multinational groups in New York, United States of America, towards increasing focus on the education of girls in Nigeria and around the world.
The governor was part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s delegation to the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77), which held at the UN headquarters in New York City.
According to a statement by Zulum on his Facebook Page, the figures he gave were official, as non-official figures could even be more.
The governor was a special guest speaker at a programme tagged, ‘Rewrite the Future,’ which called attention to increased investment in girls’ education around the world.
The event was organized by a non-governmental organisation, One Million Teachers – 1MT Cares, in collaboration with two other NGOs, Girl Rising and the North East Children’s Trust.
In his presentation, titled, ‘Investing in Girls’ Education in Nigeria, with a focus on Borno State’, the governor said that to augment gaps in girl-child education, the federal government, in collaboration with states, introduced a programme, Better Education Service Delivery (BESDA) and Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) Project, targeted at educating girls of school-age.
The programmes were designed to be vehicles for increasing the enrolment of the girl-child into schools.
“The deficit in the girl-child education is overwhelming. We need more teachers, more training of teachers, laboratory equipment, etcetera to enable our children to have better education,” Zulum said.
He mentioned the Chibok abduction and forced marriage of some of the students as some of the major threats to education in the state.
Meanwhile, the Borno State government has established an Education Trust Fund to augment funding, and has recruited over 1,000 teachers, Zulum told his audience.
He also said the state had built 21 mega schools and rehabilitated dozens of existing schools, and also provided mobile laboratories for physics, chemistry and biology in secondary schools, among other interventions.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2023. Contact him via email @ mfatunmole@icirnigeria.org