The government of Kaduna State, North-west Nigeria, on Thursday , released a new resumption schedule for its schools after months of disruption in the school calendar due to violent attacks by bandits in the state.
The state’s commissioner for education, Shehu Makarfi, disclosed this while taking part in a virtual workshop organised by the Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria.
The workshop, which is organised as part of the activities to mark the second anniversary of the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, was themed; “Consequences of Violent Attacks on Education in Nigeria.”
New timetable
According to Mr Makarfi, students of the state are expected to resume on Sunday, September 12, 2021.
However, the commissioner said rather than resume for the third term that has been aborted in the state, the schools will resume the first term for the 2021/2022 academic calendar.
He added that the state has worked out strategies towards ensuring the completion of the third term through online platforms.
He said the resumption will be in phases, and that the whole students will resume within three weeks.
He said: “As I speak with you now, we have just released our timetable for resumption for learning in our schools. The first term will resume on September 12, and they will be in school until December 16. They have 14 weeks within which they will be dealing with a lot of lessons they have missed. They will have a holiday from the 16th December 2021 to 6th January 2022.
“Second term will resume from Sunday January 9, 2022 to April 8, 2022 and they will have a holiday from 9th April till May 1, when the third term will resume.”
Mr Makarfi added that experiences from other states have taught them how to prevent further attacks in the schools, noting that while the schools were closed down officially but learning had continued unofficially.
He added: “Some of the schools are operating because we felt that if we continue to announce what we have done, the kidnappers and bandits are also listening, and following. So students are going about their learning in areas that we consider safe without uniform and we give the principals and teachers the privilege to change the time of reporting and close when appropriate.
“We are opening in phases; the SS1 and SS2 students from five local government areas which are affected by the crisis, will be moved to some boarding schools which we have arranged. The JSS students will also be moved to these boarding schools. We will make sure that they are all absorbed because they are few.”