UN special envoy for global education Gordon Brown on
Wednesday unveiled a project to improve security in Nigerian schools to
prevent a repeat of the mass kidnap of more than 200 girls by Islamist
militants.
Nigerian business leaders have contributed
an initial $10 million for the scheme, which would be implemented first
in 500 schools in northern Nigeria, which has borne the brunt of
insurgent violence since 2009.
“We cannot stand by and
see schools shut down, girls cut off from their education and parents in
fear of their daughters’ lives,” the former British prime minister said
in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
“The education system
that has the potential to transform Nigeria cannot be undermined. The
Safe School Initiative will put Nigeria on track to help more and more
girls and boys go to school and learn.
“The thoughts
and prayers of the whole world are with Nigeria’s abducted girls and
their parents as they face their fourth week in captivity.”
Speaking
on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Africa, Brown said the
pilot scheme would identify and target the most at-risk schools, involve
local communities, the security services and children themselves.
In
time, school security guards and police would be introduced and
measures such as rapid response plans worked out to react to threats or
actual attacks on educational establishments, he added.
“This
initiative is part of our work to give every girl and boy in Nigeria
the opportunity to go to school. In the year 2014 every boy and girl
should be at school and no one should be prevented from an education,”
he said.
The mass kidnap of more than 200 girls from
their school in Chibok, Borno state, on April 14 has provoked
international outrage, stoked by threats from Boko Haram militants that
the teenagers would be sold as slave brides.
Brown is
set to meet Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan this week to discuss an
international plan for what he said was “the largest school expansion
in the country’s history to get out-of-school children into school”.
Jonathan will also receive a petition with more than 400,000 signatures calling on Nigeria to create safe schools, he added.
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