Mr Mahamat expresses his sincere condolences to the loved ones of the victims, and wishes a full recovery to the injured students.

He reiterates that the need for an urgent holistic regional approach to address the threat posed by all terrorist and armed groups operating from the Democratic Republic of Congo, to ensure regional security.

The chairperson desires to reaffirm the African Union’s continued and unwavering solidarity with the Ugandan government and people during this painful period national lose.

PR/Hauwa M.

“Courses are suspended throughout the region in schools, establishments, and vocational training centers” from Friday inclusive to 25^th May at 8 a.m., indicates a document from the educational authorities published on social networks and authenticated with the ministry.

This period covers a new appointment of Mr Sonko with justice, scheduled for 23^rd May and likely to cause new tensions.

This Thursday being a public holiday and classes having been cancelled on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because of the unrest, the students of Ziguinchor will have been deprived of class for almost two weeks.

Ziguinchor, of which Mr Sonko is the mayor and where he has retired for several days, was plagued Monday and Tuesday by clashes between young supporters of Mr Sonko and the police.

The young people were protesting against the trial of Mr Sonko heard Tuesday in Dakar and intended to block around his home a possible police intervention to drag him by force before the court.

Unrest also took place in Dakar and elsewhere, the authorities reported three deaths, without the relationship with the unrest being clearly established.

The trial was adjourned to May 23^rd, the question of the presence of Mr Sonko and a possible coercion by body remains unresolved.

Mr Sonko, president of the Pastef-les Patriotes party and third in the presidential election in 2019, has always protested his innocence and shouted at the plot of power to remove him from the presidential election in 2024.

He announced that he would no longer respond to court summonses.

He has been silent for the past week and has remained invisible to the public during the clashes.

He left his home on Wednesday late afternoon, enjoying a walkabout among his enthusiastic supporters.

He is supposed to appear on May 23^rd before a criminal chamber in Dakar to answer for rape and death threats against an employee of a beauty salon in the capital.

His lawyers said they would advise him to attend.

Africanews/Hauwa M.

“Burkina has just crossed the dramatic threshold of one million children affected by the closure of schools due to the security crisis,” the NGO wrote in a statement, noting that 5,709 schools are closed.

This is twice as many as the figures announced by the government earlier this year.

Since 2017, armed Islamist groups have targeted teachers and schools in Burkina Faso, citing their opposition to Western education and government institutions.

“These closures represent about 22% of educational structures in Burkina Faso. They affect 1,008,327 students,” the NGO said, citing the latest report from the Technical Secretariat for Education in Emergencies, a government body.

According to the Ministry of Education, more than 28,000 teachers are also affected by the school closures.

“In the immediate future, and given the urgency, it is essential that governments, donors, and the humanitarian community find and fund immediate alternative solutions to mitigate the risks associated with this situation,” said Save the Children’s Burkina director Benoit Delsarte, calling it a “dramatic situation”.

“In addition to depriving children of their right to education and intellectual development, the closure of classes exposes them to many other risks that permanently compromise their well-being and their future,” he said.

For more than seven years, civilians and soldiers in Burkina Faso have been regularly plunged into mourning by increasingly frequent jihadist attacks, particularly in the north and east, which have killed thousands and forced some two million people to flee their homes.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who led a military coup on 30^th September against Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, was appointed transitional president by the Constitutional Council on 21^st October and has set himself the goal of “recapturing the territories occupied by the terrorist hordes”.

This is the second coup in Burkina Faso in eight months, and each time the coup plotters cite the deteriorating security situation.

africanews

At weekends, volunteers in Adelaide teach Luganda to young people which helps to create a sense of identity.

“Because of that reason of helping our children identify with where they come from, communicate with their relatives who don’t speak English, that is why we felt the drive of teaching them how to speak the local language”, said Luganda teacher, Brenda Noweka.

For others, it’s about preserving a language whilst creating a sense of community.

“To preserve a language is critical for a person’s self-expression, for their identity, and also most importantly for their socialisation because you need to speak a language to be part of a community”, explained Ugandan academic, Ibrahima Diallo, from the University of South Australia.

Learning Luganda, the most widely spoken native language in Uganda, is essential to communicate with relatives in the home country.

“We want our kids to be able to relate to people back home and we don’t want them to lose their cultural identity, so when they go back home, it’s easy for them to relate with people back home (…) We are trying to bring home, to our foreign home”, said Jennifer Amuna, a member of the Uganda Community of South Australia.

This year, Uganda celebrates 60 years of independence, and Ugandans all over the world are marking the occasion.

africanews

The reports submitted to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu in Abuja by various chairmen of the panels revealed that tertiary institutions give priority to Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) at the expense of the quality of the system.

It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari on April 13, inaugurated the visitation panels of 38 federal universities, four Inter-University Centres, 25 polytechnics, 21 Colleges of Education and 4 inter-universities centres to review the performance of institutions

The panels were set up as part of the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The Chairman of the panel to the University of Abuja, Mr. Bukar Aji, spoke on behalf of Chairmen of visitation panels of 88 institutions.

Aji said that at the inauguration of the panels, the committees took it upon themselves to address the entire 11 terms of reference given to the panel.

READ ALSO:https://von.gov.ng/2021/04/12/government-inaugurates-visitation-panels-for-polytechnics-colleges-of-education/ 

”We painstakingly took time to X-ray the entire university management and did our forensic work to come up with the report.

We took time as the panel to see the extent of the white paper of the last visitation panel and we observed areas of disappointment.

“From approval of the last white paper at the University of Abuja, only about 45 percent of the recommendations were implemented which may not be a pass mark”

“ We went an extra length to interact with faculties head, unions and others to get to the root of the problems in the university”

From the recommendation that came out from our reports, it has been observed that the priorities given IGR is affecting qualities in our various institutions,” he said.

Aji, further noted that the Federal Government had invested and still investing in tertiary institutions while calling for an improved quality to justify the government’s expenditure on institutions.

Responding, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu promised that adequate attention would be given to the recommendations resulting from the report.

While admitting that the panels were raised as part of demands of ASUU, he added that the Federal Government has no basis to disagree with the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) with their demands over the years.

“This visitation panel was one of the things they asked for and we have fulfilled all of them and this visitation has not been conducted in 10 years and this is actually two different visitations,” he said.

Adamu, represented by the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Chukuemeka Nwajiuba, said that a committee would be set up to look into the white paper that would be drawn from the recommendations.

The white paper that will be drawn from the recommendations of the reports will address the challenges thus identified in our tertiary institutions in the past years.

“It is hoped to mitigate the incessant friction between the staff unions of these institutions and government and result in the much desired industrial harmony.

He gave the assurance that the government will give accelerated attention to the implementation of the white paper that will be produced from the reports.

The Panels were tasked to review the performance of the institutions in the areas of governance, standards, quality assurance, management of finances and relationship between management and staff.

They also looked at the assessment of the condition of physical infrastructure and quality of instruction as well as instructional facilities and advise the government accordingly.

Nnenna.O

Hajiya Fatima Bisallah, Team Leader for the enumeration from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, disclosed this in Minna on Wednesday.

It would be recalled that NHGSFP is a Nigerian Government-led N70 per day school feeding programme aimed at improving the health and educational status of public-school pupils.

Bisallah said the exercise was a physical verification to capture and get accurate biometric data of pupils and cooks in the state to scale up the programme to include more pupils.

READ ALSO: School Feeding Programme: Federal Government targets additional 5 million Pupils

“The exercise is to know the exact figure of the pupils benefitting from the programme as well as has their database to enable us to scale up the number of pupils,” she said.

She said the ministry was collaborating with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for the data capture.

She added that the security challenges on part of the state would not hinder the exercise as appropriate measures had been put in place to cover the no-go areas.

Also speaking, Malam Hamza Audu, the Director of NOA in Niger, said the agency has fully sensitised stakeholders and communities to ensure the success of the exercise.

Mrs Amina Gu’ar, Focal Person of Social Investment Programme (SIP) in Niger, expressed satisfaction with the quality of food being served to pupils by the vendors.

She said that about 560,000 pupils were benefitting from the programme in the state with over 5,000 food vendors engaged by the government.

NAN/Nnenna.O

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has commenced the provision of free medical care for the Internally Displaced Persons as a result of healthcare challenge of the over 36,000 of them.

Already two hospitals, Wuse General Hospital and Asokoro General Hospital, have been designated as places for free treatment of IDPs in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Director-General, FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Dr. Abbas Idriss, disclosed this when he received in his office, executive members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), FCT council, led by its chairman, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche.

Idriss added that about 400 women IDPs have been trained on skill acquisition, while another 200 women were also trained on rice padding, to ensure that the IDPs have means of livelihood.

Chairman of NUJ, FCT Council, Emmanuel Ogbeche, appealed to the FCT minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, to consider appropriate funding for FEMA, because the of the enormous tasks and responsibilities of the agency, especially advocacy, rehabilitation and assistance to those affected by one form of disaster or the other.

Ogbeche commended the director-general of FEMA for setting the pace in disaster and post disaster management in the FCT and for his service to the administration and residents of the territory.

According to him, “Let me also commend you for your impressive undertakings in the committee that looked into the violence clashes, occasioned by the EndSARS protests in the FCT.

For the fact that you worked within the time frame and came up with a painstaking report, speaks  of your commitment, dedication and unalloyed commitment to, not just peace and stability in the FCT, but it also demonstrates your passion for this country.”