Insecurity: Educationist Frowns at Closure of Schools in North

By Ashemiriogwa Emmanuel

**Urges FG to Explore Tech for Grassroots Education

With the large figure of out-of-school children in Nigeria, the president of the American University of Nigeria (AUN), Mrs Margee Ensign, has advised the federal government on how it can reach children who are not getting formal education in the country.

The AUN president said that the government should adopt the use of technology to reach out-of-school children even in their homes.

She recalled how the school was able to execute the Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA) project and use radio and computer tabloids to reach over 30,000 kids who were not in school in Adamawa State during the time of pressing crisis.

According to her, “When we were dealing with insurgency a few years ago, we used radio and computer tabloid to reach over 30,000 kids who were not in school in our community. We really hope to expand some of those projects not just in our community but in our region and other crisis areas.”

She also added that the closure of schools to prevent attacks from bandits was not the solution.

“If this hotel were under attack, would we say close it? If the airport were under attack, would we say close it? But that is what we have done to schools. They are under attack so let us close the schools; why not protect the schools?

“Where is the protection for these kids? They have a right to go to school. Until that happens, the schools are probably going to be closed and we all need to find a way to get them an education,” Mrs Ensign said.

On the note that the National Personnel Audit (NPA) Report conducted by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in 2018 revealed that Nigeria has over 10 million children that are not in school, the AUN president disclosed plans to extend the TELA project which is sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

In her words, “No society could afford to have those numbers of children not in school. I hope at AUN we can expand our work in that area through our Technology Enhanced Learning for All project.”