Kogi Nomadic Schools Programmes Lack Teachers, Classrooms

Academic activities have been paralysed in 25 nomadic schools in Kogi State owing to lack of teachers and inadequate classrooms. students

The state coordinator of nomadic education, Mr. Abdulkadir Adoga, told journalists yesterday in Lokoja, the state capital, that the situation portends danger for the future of 4, 116 nomadic pupils.

Adoga said that nomadic education took off in Kogi at its creation in 1991 with 35 inherited teachers from Benue and Kwara states, claiming that all efforts to make the state government recruit more teachers for the schools did not yield result.

He said the problem was further compounded as three of the teachers died within a spate of six months thereby leaving the schools with 2, 353 female pupils and 1, 763 male pupils with only 32 teachers.

According to the coordinator, this year’s advocacy and mobilisation exercise organised by the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) noted that many of the classrooms in all the schools were dilapidated and not conducive for learning.

Adoga, therefore, appealed to the federal and state governments, as well as stakeholders to quickly address the challenges confronting nomadic education in the state. He urged the stakeholders to address the problem of increasing rate of female dropout in all the schools due to early marriage.

The coordinator noted that the female pupils, who are more than their male counterparts, usually drop out in Primary 3 or Primary 4. Adoga urged the stakeholders to prevail on parents to allow the female pupils complete their education before marriage.

The Director of Social Mobilisation and Outreach of the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE), Alhaji Mohammed El-Nafati, noted that stakeholders were already rising to the challenges of sustaining and providing education to the target beneficiaries, which include pastoralists, nomadic fishermen and nomadic farmers. Nafati stressed that providing education to the nomads was a joint responsibility between the federal, state and local governments.

The Head Teacher of the Nomadic Primary School at Kara in Kogi State, Mr. Audu Garba, pleaded with government to provide more teachers, teaching aids and classrooms for the school.

Garba, who claimed that he had been teaching in the school for the past 17 years, said he and one other teacher attached were finding it difficult to cope with a population of 126 pupils in Primary 1 to 6. A parent, Alhaji Musa Shaibu, described the situation as frustrating and worrisome, saying that he and other parents had lost confidence in nomadic education.

He said the parents had resolved to enroll their children in conventional public primary and secondary schools in Lokoja, Gegu-Beki and other towns

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