The minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Muhammad Bello has ordered the immediate and appropriate fencing of all schools with Nigeria’s capital city.
Speaking at a meeting with the management of the FCT education secretariat on Tuesday, January 5, Bello said direct labour must be used to ensure that the boundaries of all schools within the capital city is identified and fenced as a means of checking encroachment.
Bello explained that the use of direct labour would enable the FCT Administration cut cost and fence as many schools in this fiscal year as possible.
Frowning at the porous security challenges faced in Nigeria and the exposure of large number of school children, Bello warned that the security of lives and property in government owned schools must be adequately safeguarded.
He said that adequate security in schools will ensure capital investments and provide optimal benefit to FCT residents.
In addition, the minister decried the poor performance of students in the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) in the FCT.
He said the failures must be reversed positively.
Bello further charged the education management team to restructure their priorities by paying more attention to the improvement of the quality of teaching and educational materials.
He said this will help raise the performance level of students at the two national examinations.
He assured that his administration would give precedence to proper and regular feeding of students, ensure adequate water supply, cleanliness of school environments and security of all schools within the FCT.
The executive director, education service/ partnership of the School Hunters in Abuja, Ada Okoronkwo said the minister’s directive is a welcome development.
She said: “It is a very good directive, it is actually very important that schools are fenced not just public schools; private schools and even higher institution.”
Okoronkwo said the minister’s directive on public schools could be due to the fact that most, if not all private schools are already fenced or have some form of electronic security.
“Well, the minister is concentrating on public schools because private schools already have their own security, majority of them are quite secured,” Okoronkwo said.
She added that: “It is a welcome idea, not just for security reasons but discipline in the schools. When schools are not fenced, the children or students leave school at random and this is not good for the system.”
“Sometimes during break periods, some student leave school and they do not come back and it is very difficult for the school authorities to check truancies; the fencing will do a lot in reducing truancy,” she said.
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