Six schools still flooded, not ready for students’ return — Borno

The Borno State government says about six public schools are still flooded and not safe for learning as a result of last month’s flood that ravaged Maiduguri, the state capital.

Lawan Abba Wakilbe, the state Commissioner for Education, Science Technology and Innovation, stated this while receiving a donation of N1 million from some non-governmental organisations. The GOs include the Centre for Advocacy, Transparency & Accountability Initiative (CATAI), and Unique Care and Support Foundation (CASFOD) to support school children affected by the flood in Jere and Maiduguri.

Wakilbe said the flood has created a gap in the state education calendar, and that the government has initiated a damage assessment to see how destroyed school infrastructure would be put back quickly to enable children return to classrooms.

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“Some of our schools will start in the next two weeks because there are like five or six schools that have not dried that we are waiting for the soil to dry to see what effect it has in our buildings.

“Then, there are other schools that are not good enough for learning because the flood has severely affected them; we need to demolish them and rebuild”, he said.

He underscored the importance of partnership with critical stakeholders, especially in the education sector, noting that the challenges were overwhelming and more resources were needed to fix the destroyed learning facilities in the affected areas.

“Our teams inspected the majority of our schools in the flood-affected areas like Abbaganaram, Goni Kachallahari, old Maiduguri, Gomboru and others most of the children are without uniforms or any writing materials.

“You see waste evacuated is mostly dissolved paper from what were once textbooks and exercise books”, he said.