Challenges of Boko Haram Insurgence on Nigeria’s Educational Sector Essay

The activities of the Islamic radical camarilla, Boko Haram has adversely affected Nigerias educational firmament. This concomitant is not hidden as the name of the sect altogether signifies a total outcry against education ( Hesperian education) and schooling. Boko means book or western learning in Hausa language and Haram means forbidden or vile in Arabic language, thus the groups name alone is a campaign against western education and schooling. Nigerias education domain at entirely level is suffering as a conclusion of the current prevailing protection situation in the matrimony, a office where school enrolment has been the lowest in Nigeria.The sects activities make believe affected Nigerias educational sector in the following shipway The sects activity has light-emitting diode to destruction of school buildings and separate pedantic facilities It has light-emitting diode to death of academic experts It has led to exodus of academic experts and shortage of qualifi ed teaching man part in northern Nigeria It has led to mismanagement and diversion of governments attention from the educational sector It has led to accomplish disruption of academic calendar in the region.So far this year, 15 schools dumbfound been burnt scratch off in Maiduguri, the not bad(p) of Nigerias Borno State, forcing over 700 children out of formal education and pushing down enrolment rates in an already ill educated region. The Islamic Boko Haram group is widely blamed for the attacks but the reality seems to be much complex. Both public and private schools in Maiduguri brace been doused with gasoline at night and set on fire. Crude homemade bombs and soda bottles make full with gasoline have been hurled at the bare bones concrete classrooms Nigeria offers its children.The guileless yellow facades have been blackened and the plain desks method to twisted pipes, going away thousands of children without a place to learn, stranded at home and underfoot, while de sirous parents plead with Nigerians authorities to come up with a contingency conception for their education. In a video affix on You Tube in February 2012, Boko Haram called on its follows to destroy schools providing western education in retaliation for the alleged(a) targeting of Korani schools by the military.The spokes man of the sect, Abul Quqa, give tongue to the attacks were in response to what he called a targeting of the citys (ie Maiduguri) abundant open air Islamic schools by authorities. Since February when this call was made, many schools including private schools have been destroyed. However officials of the state have denied any of such attacks or campaign as unfledged boys commode be seen receiving lesson untroubled allover Maiduguri (the New York Times, 2012).This new dimensional breakage of the sects attack has numerous adverse stamps on educational growth of the region and the nation at large. fit in to Nigeria Education Data discipline 2010, school e nrolment in Borno state is already low by 28 per centime than any different state in Nigeria. No doubt, the recent attack have made parents and guardians to withdraw their children from schools and has made it nasty for teachers and aid groups to persuade parents to let their children stay on at schools.Eric Gultscluss (a detective in Nigeria for the Watching Human Right Organization) noted that it is not on the dot the students at the targeted schools that end up being affected as targeting of schools locoweed make children in neighboring schools to stay home or shake out completely for fear of further attacks. The targeting of children indirectly and destruction of schools in Maiduguri has bewildered and demoralized students, parents and teachers in a way that the daily attacks have not.Furthermore, the attacks have led to death of academic experts teaching in all levels of Nigerias educational system ranging from primary to secondary and beyond. On sun,29 April, 2012, mem bers of the sect attacked Christian workshops in Bayero University Campus, Kano resulting to death of 20 students and 2 professor of the university. According to an eye witness, the attackers arrived in a car and two motorcycles and throw dispirited homemade bombs to draw out worshippers before shooting at them as they attempt to flee.The attack led to the death of Professor Jerome Ayodele, a professor of chemistry and Professor Andrew Leo Ogbonyomi, a professor of library intuition with about 20 others dead and scores of others injured. (Ikhilae, 2012). Undoubtedly, this is a set sustain for educational development in the agricultural. Also the persistence of insecurity in the north which has led to lose of about 700 lives so far this year (2012), has led to exodus of academic experts and shortage of qualified teaching man power in the region.It has also led to refusal of NYSC members who constitute about 50 per cent of teaching man power in the region to serve in the region. M aijawa Dawayo, Chairman, Yobe State Teaching Service Board, in an interview with Nations News newspaper on 9 Feb. , 2012 has this to say, the recent circular by the internal callowness Service Corps (NYSC) that army corps members who constitute 50 per cent of the ages man power should no yearner be posted to senior secondary schools in the state would have an adverse effect on the educational sector of the State.Most of the corps members are not interested in coming here again because of insecurity in the north. We are in a difficult situation and something needs to be done urgently to solve the problem. The corps members constitute 50 per cent of the manpower in our schools and the head of the scheme had issued a circular that corps members would no longer be posted to senior secondary schools (The Nation, 9 Feb, 2012).Dawoyes fear and lamentation was later made public and a reality in July 2012 when NYSC members posted to Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Niger, Plateau and Bauchi state refused to serve in the states and protested against their deployment to the violent prone states. Corps members and their parents took to the street to protest their deployment to the northwestwardern States when the 2012 NYSC live B list came out arguing that it is senseless to post young graduate to these states.Most of the parents vowed not to allow their children to go and be killed by Boko Haram (National Mirror, 2 July, 2012). Awosuru Lola, a graduate of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso in Oyo state, who was posted to tableland state said his father hard ordered him not to get across at the camp for whatever reason. Also Badiru Tajiudeen, a graduate of quantity surveying of Obafemi Awolowo University (O. A. U), Ile Ife, posted to Zamfara state vowed that nothing could keep him beyond the requisite three weeks of orientation programme in the camp.He also said that his parents are even reluctant in releasing him to participate in the th ree weeks orientation and warned him to abort the programme if he is not transferred back to the west (National Mirror, 2 July, 2012). This development leave make a lay waste to mark on the educational sector of the affected northern states. It will be recalled that ten young corps members lost their lives during the post presidential election protest/violence in some northern states in April 2011, while others lost their lives in other violent clashes in the region.The contingency of other Southerners who are teachers in the region is not different from that of NYSC members as most of them have found the exit door from the region. Dawayo confirmed this when he said that 80 per cent of Yobe State contract teachers who are from other states have left Yobe because of the same problem of insecurity (The Nation Feb 9, 2012) In addition, insecurity in the region caused by Boko Haram has also led to complete disruption of academic calendar in the region.Most of the attacks never go wi thout untruth of curfew by the government. The attacks have in some cases led to imposition of 24 hours curfew and when such curfew is imposed, both students and teachers are affected and this on the long run adversely affects the academic calendar which stipulates when school starts and when it ends as considerably as what should be done in the school and when thus drawing off students in the region behind their counterparts in other peaceful states.It is Copernican that I state it clearly at this juncture that the North is a region where education enrolment and development is the least in the country and the current security situation is bound to compound the educational woes of the North and further widen the gap between it and the South. While private high institution are rapidly springing up in the South to equilibrate the over stretched public institutions, only a handful has been established in the North and the few ones have come under Boko Haram attacks.According to National University commission (NUC), 50 private universities have been licensed to operate in the country. Out of this 50, fewer than 15 are established in the north. What this implies is a dim future for educational development of the region and a pitch-black future for young children in the region and this by implication is life-threatening to Nigerias peace, unity and development. No matter how one looks at it, the attacks by the sect on schools have left many destructive label on the future of affected children in the region and the country at large.The affected children are at home which means a bleak future for them and the country at large because the future of a country depends on the kind and quality of education it offers its children. Finally, the insurrection of Boko Haram has led to distraction and diversion of both Federal and affected State governments attention from the educational sector. This is evident in the 2012 annual budgetary assignation of the Federal Government in which the mind bugling chunk of 921. 91 one million million million was allocated to security alone, while education on which the future of the country depends got the petty(a) chunk of 400. 48 billion naira which is not up to half of what is effrontery to security.There is no argument on the fact that both security and education are critical for the survival of a nation, but had it been at that place is peace in the country, the chunk given to security would have been considerately lower than what it has now. What the lean resources allocated to the educational sector means is a begrimed and difficult future for the sector. This is because there will be no resources to set off new educational developmental program and the ones already introduced will for certain suffer of poor funding.