The Federal Government has reaffirmed commitment towards bringing to an end the persistent challenge of attacks on schools and abduction of schoolchildren by bandits in the country.

Minister of Education, Dr. Olatunji Alausa, who stated this on Wednesday during an official visit to the Headquarters of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), declared government’s zero-tolerance to attacks on schools, saying all necessary measures would be taken to bring the menace to an end in line with the directive of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

He said the President has directed that everything should be done humanly possible to ensure that all children that are in school are kept in a safe, decent and conducive environment for effective teaching and learning to take place.

He noted that the first bold step was to reposition the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre (NSSRC) which is domiciled at the NSCDC Headquarters.

Alausa called for the decentralization of the Response Coordination Centre to states and local government areas, stressing the need to establish response coordinating centres in all the 36 states of the Federation and FCT, as well as 774 local government areas across the country.

According to him, decentralization of the coordinating centres would enhance prompt response to emergencies in schools across the country.

He also revealed that government would work quickly on developing a robust alert system, which he noted has been lacking overtime.

“We will get to a point that every single school, both public and private school in the country have panic button. If they see any suspicious activity, they can press that panic button, it goes straight to the local government control centre, the state and federal coordinating centre, for quick response from community guards and security agencies. That’s how we can bring these cases of abduction and kidnapping in schools to an end.

He maintained that the menace of student abductions is unacceptable, stressing that protecting children in schools remained a collective responsibility of government, security agencies and communities.

“We will move from knee-jerk responses to a continuous security presence, especially in vulnerable schools.

“Our children must remain safe in school, and this administration is committed to providing the resources and structure required,” Alausa said.

The minister said a full-fledged Safe Schools department was being established in the Federal Ministry of Education to coordinate national implementation and improve collaboration with the NSCDC.

He said Improved response systems, including technology-driven alert mechanisms such as panic buttons linked to command centres, would be introduced to enable rapid deployment of security personnel.

Alausa said the government was also exploring sustainable financing options to ensure continuous funding for school security, independent of delays in budgetary releases.

He said NSCDC had been identified as the lead agency for school protection, adding that clearer operational coordination would replace fragmented and reactive security arrangements.

Commandant-General of NSCDC, Professor Ahmed Audi, revealed that the Corps has established specialised female squad and community security structures that had prevented over 110 security threats against schools across the country.

He also disclosed that the Corps had conducted nationwide vulnerability assessments revealing that more than 60,000 of about 81,000 schools lacked adequate security.

Audi said these schools identified nationwide were porous and needed urgent attention in safeguarding the students and learning environments.

“These schools are porous in the sense that there was no presence of security men or no fences in those schools, so that gave us a guide on how now to develop our operational strategy in terms of mutual security and safety for the schools.

”And I tell you, in doing that, what we did first was to provide the data and submit the same reports to the Federal Ministry of Education,” he said.

“The Safe Schools Protection Squad and community engagement initiatives have significantly strengthened intelligence gathering and emergency response,” he said.

He, however, identified inadequate funding as a major challenge, noting that only a fraction of required resources had been released for school protection operations.

He described the situation as challenging, noting that running the centre under the funding constraints had not been easy.

Audi, however, assured the minister of the corps’ commitment to deeper collaboration to guarantee safe learning environments for students nationwide. (Nigerian Tribune)