Category: Education

Police in Nigeria say armed men have attacked a school in the northwest state of Kebbi, killing a police officer and abducting at least 80 students and teachers. It’s the latest in a series of school kidnappings for ransom that have exposed growing insecurity in northern Nigeria.

About 250 gunmen on motorbikes invaded the government college in Yauri, Kebbi state midday Thursday. They shot sporadically, killed a police officer and abducted five lecturers along with the students.

However, one of the students with bullet wounds was dropped along the way.

The attack is the latest in a string of kidnappings in northern Nigerian schools since December, and the third in the last month.

Speaking to Lagos-based Channels Television Friday morning, Yusuf Sununu, a local constituent leader in Yauri said security operatives are making progress with the search mission.

“We have made a lot of contacts and as at last night, even around 1 a.m. this morning, I had a discussion with the field commander, [he said] that they have succeeded in entering into the den of the kidnappers and I think this is a major success because security agents are now taking the fight to the base of the kidnappers” Bununu said.

The government school and many others in Kebbi were shut down Friday.

Amnesty International reports about 600 schools in northern Nigeria have closed as a result of persistent attacks since late last year.

Earlier this year, the government promised more security deployment to schools.

But Emmanuel Hwande, spokesperson of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, says schools remain poorly protected.

“As far as the security situation as it affects our schools is concerned, nothing has changed” Hwande said. “We can only say things have changed where we receive reports of less of such occurrences. But in the span of just this week, we have heard a kidnap of a lecturer and a kidnap in a polytechnic in Kaduna.”

Nigeria authorities have faced increased criticism over the kidnappings, one of the many security challenges including Boko Haram conflict in the northeast, and a growing separatist movement in the country’s southeast.

The separatist calls have led to the creation of various regional security forces, which authorities say are illegal and threaten national security.

The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, says lack of opportunities is the major reason for the escalating security issues.

“Challenges to security are more than just about a physical response. While there may be very many different reasons for insecurity in Nigeria for example, I think we may all agree that lack of opportunity underpins many of them,” Leonard said. “I was just in Kebbi last week, more farmers are being employed to grow rice to bring to the factory where people have jobs.”

Late last month, armed men seized 136 young students from an Islamic Seminary school in central Niger state. So far, only 11 of them have been freed.

Source: Voice of America

Grade 8 National General Examination has commenced Yesterday, 16 June.

According to Mr. Dini Mohammed, from the Ministry of Education, the exam is being conducted in 5 subjects and will continue until 18 June.

Mr. Dini also said that the exam is being conducted in 402 exam centers as well as in the Eritrean community school in the Sudan in which over 50 thousand students including 47.2% females, are participating.

The participants include students who have completed grade eight as well as members of the Eritrean Defense Forces who have been attending evening schools.

It is to be recalled that last year the National Examination has been postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Malawi is taking steps to start allowing Muslim students to wear the hijab, or headscarf, in all educational institutions. The controversial issue has forced some schools to close in the predominantly Christian country.

The issue of wearing the hijab has long been a point of contention in Malawi, especially in Christian-run schools where female Muslim students have not been allowed to cover their heads in class.

The controversy reached its peak in October when suspected angry Muslims in eastern Malawi torched the office of a Catholic primary school head teacher who had turned away pupils wearing the garment.

The standoff forced several Christian primary schools in the Muslim-dominated region to close.

As a result, the Ministry of Education requested that the quasi-religious Public Affairs Committee, or PAC, help resolve the matter.

Gilford Matonga, a spokesperson for the PAC, says a compromise had to be reached.

“One of the recommendations is that the Islamic girl child is allowed to wear the hijab that matches the school uniform wherever they are going to school. On the other side is that no girl child shall be forced to put on the hijab if they wish not to put on [the hijab],” Matonga said.

Abdul-Salaam Faduweck is the spokesperson for the Hijab Task Force, a branch of the Muslim Association of Malawi, which has been lobbying for the scarves to be worn in all schools nationwide.

He said the task force has welcomed the PAC’s recommendation with the expectation that the school uniforms will be in line with a complete hijab.

“We need the uniform to be according to the understanding of the meaning of hijab itself. If it is a skirt it has to be a long skirt, it has to be loose not tight. If it is a blouse it has to be with a long sleeve and not very tight. And the learner has to cover the head with a scarf. That is a complete hijab,” Faduweck said.

Imran Sheriff, a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Malawi, said the recommendation is partly impractical, especially since the headscarf is also regarded as part of the school uniform in Muslim schools.

“The putting on a hijab is based on religion and putting on school uniform is based on school regulations in order that the students should look equal. So, if it is an Islamic institution, if the hijab is part of the uniform, then everybody will be obliged [to put on a headscarf],” Sheriff said.

Michael Kaiyatsa, executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation in Malawi, said now is the time for Malawi to allow all religious symbols into class to promote religious coexistence.

“It shouldn’t be Muslims or a particular religion. If we allow, then it should be across the board. If people are allowed to come to schools with rosaries around their necks, then why shouldn’t we allow other religions to do the same?” Kaiyatsa asked.

The PAC’s Matonga said the organization is expected to present the recommendations to the education officials next week for their input.

Education authorities told VOA they could not comment on the matter now because they have yet to receive the recommendations.

Source: Voice of America

New schools in the administrative areas of Agmait and Akaide, Kerkebet sub-zone, constructed in cooperation with the office of Construction Development in Gash Barka region, the Ministry of Education, Border Patrol Units as well as the public have been inaugurated on 27 May.

The inauguration ceremony of the schools was conducted in the presence of Ambassador Mohammed Ali Hiruy, Governor of the region, Col. Yonas Bitsuamlak, Commander of North-West Command and Border Patrol as well as other officials in the region.

Pointing out that the construction of the new schools attests to the attention the Government is giving to remote areas, Sheik Omar Mohammed-Tahir, a village elder in Agmait, said that signals the bright future of the area.

Ambassador Mohammed Ali Hiruy on his part said that developmental activities being conducted in Agmait attest to the progress being made in terms of ensuring social justice and called on the residents to take advantage of the opportunity provided and send their children to school.

At the event, prizes were handed over to outstanding students by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare branch in the region.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

An armed gang abducted students from an Islamic school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger on Sunday, police and state government officials said.

Armed groups carrying out kidnapping for ransom are blamed for a series of raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 700 students for ransom since December.

A spokesman for Niger’s state police said in a statement that gunmen on motorcycles attacked the town of Tegina, in the Rafi local government area of the state, around 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) Sunday.

He said the attackers were “shooting indiscriminately and abducted a yet to be ascertained number of children at Salihu Tanko Islamic school.”

The school’s owner, Abubakar Tegina, told Reuters in a phone interview that he witnessed the attack.

“I personally saw between 20 and 25 motorcycles with heavily armed people. They entered the school and went away with about 150 or more of the students,” said Tegina, who lives about 150 meters from the school.

Tegina said there are around 300 pupils between the ages of 7 and 15. He said pupils live at home and only attend classes at the site.

Most students kidnapped in recent months have been taken from boarding schools.

One person was shot dead during the attack and a second person was seriously injured, the state governor’s spokeswoman said.

She said 11 of the children taken were released by the gunmen because they were “too small and couldn’t walk.” A group of bus passengers were also abducted, she said.

Sunday’s attack in Niger state took place the day after the release of the remaining 14 students of a group abducted last month from a university in neighboring Kaduna state.

Source: Voice of America