Stakeholders have advocated for global efforts to achieve the safe Schools initiative, as Nigeria will be hosting the fourth international safe schools conference in October this year.
This call was made at a Pre- conference Press Briefing in Abuja , Nigeria, organized by the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to raise awareness on the International Conference.
Representatives of Diplomatic Missions in Nigeria, AU, UN Agencies and Civil Society Organizations at the briefing all emphasized the need for global synergy to end the attacks on schools.
The Country Representative of the United Nations International Children’s Fund UNICEF, Mr. Peter Hawkins, condemned the increasing attacks on Schools, students and teachers by bandits and kidnappers happening around the world, and called for the immediate release of the victims.
Mr. Hawkins also called on international partners to redouble their commitments to curb the attacks on educational institutes and provide conducive environment for children to learn.
“The initiatives are ongoing and have been dynamic and timely learning possible to the other context driven data learning materials is becoming available, radio learning has been accelerated across the country and access to digital platform will more accessible to the young people, all these mitigating steps are crucial to ensure the children are able to continue their learning, but at the same time we must look at how to protect education facilities” he said.
The Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama said the conference which will be hosted by Nigeria this year has the international focus for the countries to share experiences and come out with concrete solutions to kidnappings and banditry attacks in schools.
“I would like to state that, we understand the challenges that educational system is facing occasion by insecurity, banditry and kidnapping and nevertheless we want assure you that Nigerian government is doing everything possible to ensure that our children can return to their schools without fear of been attack” Onyeama added.
The pre-conference was aimed at reviewing the progress in implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration, SSD, and the guidelines for protecting schools and Universities during armed conflicts.
The conference was also a forum for States, Multilateral and Civil society organisations, to exchange experiences and to present their strategies, as well as challenges in making the promise of safe education into reality globally.
The theme of the event was making commitments a reality Towards the Abuja conference.
Nigeria will be the first African country to host the global conference.
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