Borno Students Now Finaly Return To School

Female students in Northern Nigeria.

          After eight months of total closure, public schools in Borno State, northern Nigeria, re-opened on Monday, 17 November, 2014, with impressive turnout of pupils.

It would be recalled that public schools in Borno state were shut eight months ago as a result of terror attacks being perpetrated by Boko Haram insurgents.

According to Thisday newspaper report, a visit to some schools in the Maiduguri metropolis and Jere showed that the pupils were still keen to study despite the prevailing insecurity in the state.

It was gathered that there were large turnouts of pupils receiving lessons in most of the schools visited on Wednesday.

Some of the schools visited included Yerwa Central Primary School, Lamisula Primary School, Hausari and the old Maiduguri both in Maiduguri and Jere Local Government Area.

While going round some of the public schools on Wednesday, the Chairman of the committee on the resuscitation of primary education in Borno state, Dr. Mohammed Dongel, assured parents that government was ready to provide adequate security for both the pupils and teachers.

“The state government has also put all necessary machinery in motion to ensure that the pupils learn under conducive environment to ensure improvement in standard of primary education,” Dongel added.

He disclosed that 450 primary schools out of the 1357 schools have so far resumed, adding that the turnout of pupils who have resumed for lessons is impressive.

“So far, the turnout of pupils is impressive with 70 per cent and we hope that by next week the turnout will be 100 per cent,” the chairman added.

“Governor Kashim Shettima will in the next two weeks flag off of free uniform and feeding programme for the pupils,” he also said.

It would be recalled that President Jonathan sent a letter to the Nigerian Senate on Monday seeking for an extension of emergency rule in three North – Eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.

The three states are the worst hit by Boko Haram violence that has been going on in Nigeria since 2009.

Meanwhile Chief Edwin Clark and other elders under the aegis of Congress for Equality and Change (CEC) have called the President Jonathan to sack some of the governors of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States.