Every 23rd April in most places around the world, World Book Day is celebrated to promote the benefits of reading books, publishing and copyright. It was created by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1995 as a worldwide celebration of reading and books. Over the years, World Book Day has been symbolic to advocating a culture of reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own.
Literacy and the ability to read is a skill that is vital to a child’s future success and we at Bridge Nigeria, a network of nursery and primary schools serving underserved communities in Lagos and Osun states, consider reading and literacy to be foundational to a child’s learning. This statement was made by Ms. Foyinsola Akinjayeju, the Managing Director of Bridge Nigeria in commemoration of the 2021 World Book Day. She also noted that the practice of reading to young children daily, starting in infancy, can help with language acquisition, communication skills, social skills, and literacy skills.
In the area of literacy, Bridge pupils in Lagos are demonstrating higher attainment than their peers in other comparable private schools (by 0.35 standard deviations) and public schools (by 1.38 standard deviations) and this is corroborated in an independent study report by DFID.
The Regional Director, Academics, Rhoda Odigboh stated that reading expands the mind by developing a child’s imagination and engaging critical thinking skills, while also noting that reading to children at an early age stimulates the part of the brain that allows them to understand the meaning of language which helps build key language, literacy and social skills.
According to Odigboh, “Bridge pupils are provided with resources and textbooks to help them improve literacy among other skills such as problem-solving, creative and critical thinking as well as social awareness.” Bridge offers an electronic reading programme, in which pupils spend time working and reading books on a computer tablet per lesson in the classroom. “We also have the Bridge@Home virtual storybook library with hundreds of age and grade level story books which provide daily reading practice for pupils, even when they are at home.” She said.
The Bridge @Home learning resources was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that children continue to learn and grow even when at home. The resources include learning guides which help children complete different learning activities for each subject, self-study activity packs which are designed to help children complete different tasks, hundreds of stories through the virtual storybook library to help children practice literacy and free mobile interactive quizzes that children can take directly on WhatsApp.
Speaking on the daily reading practice, a parent, Mrs Adeola Ojo said the @Home reading practice initiative kept her son who is in Nursery class, busy and engaged at home. On the reading practice, she said, “I end up reading each story multiple times because he keeps asking me to read it again.”
Reading to young children is proven to improve cognitive skills and help along the process of cognitive development. Introducing reading into your young child’s life, and the conversations that it will prompt, helps them to make sense of their own lives, especially at a young age.
Government College, Keffi (old Keffi Secondary School situated in Kaduna) (1949)
Molusi College, Ijebu-Igbo (1949)
Baptist High School, Borokiri, Port Harcourt (1949)
Oriwu College, Ikorodu (1949)
Ago-Iwoye Secondary School, Ago-Iwoye (1950)
Ijebu Muslim College (1950)
Our Ladies of Apostle Secondary School, Yaba, Lagos (1950)
St. Peter Claver’s College, Sapele (1950)
Egbado (Yewa) College, Ilaro (1950)
St. Thomas’s Aquinas College, Akure (1951)
Queen’s School, Ibadan (1952)
Government College, Afikpo, Ebonyi (1952)
Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure (1953)
Loyola College, Ibadan (1954)
St. Bernadine’s, Oyo (1954)
Our Ladies of Apostle Secondary School, Ijebu-Ode (1954)
St. Anthony’s Grammar School, Ijebu-Imushin (1954)
Manuwa Memorial Grammar School, Iju-Odo ( 1954)
Fiditi Grammar School, Fiditi, Oyo (1954)
National High School, Arondizuogu, Imo (1954)
Iheme Memorial Grammar School, Arondizuogu, Imo (1954)
St. Louis Secondary School, Ondo (1954)
Gboluji Grammar School, Ile-Oluji, Ondo (1954)
Badagry Grammar School, Badagry (1955)
African Church Grammar School, Abeokuta (1955)
Ibara Anglican High School, Abeokuta (1955)
Doherty Memorial Grammar School, Ijero- Ekiti (1955)
St Patrick’s College, Asaba (1955)
St. Monica Girls’ School, Ondo (1955)
St. Catherine’s Anglican Girls School, Owo (1956)
St Joseph’s College, Ondo (1956)
Fatima College, Ikire.(1956)
Mayflower School, Ikenne (1956)
Isonyin Grammar School, Isonyin (1956)
Ebenezer Grammar School, Abeokuta (1956)
St. Joseph College, Ondo (1956)
Odogbolu Grammar School, Odogbolu (1957)
Notre Dame College, Ozoro (1957)
Government College, Makurdi (1957)
Holy Rosary College, Idah (1957)
Anglican Grammar School, Iju-itaogbolu (1957)
African Church Grammar School, Oka-Akoko (1957)
Okemesi Grammar School, Okemesi-Ekiti (1958)
Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan (1958)
Ahmadu Bahago Secondary School (old Niger Baptist College), Niger (1958)
Anglican Grammar School, Igbara-Oke (1958)
St. Patrick’s College, Oka-Akoko (1959)
Ondo Anglican Grammar School, Ondo (1959)
Premier Grammar School, Abeokuta (1959)
St Malachy’s College, Sapele. The highlighted schools morphed from primary schools/Teachers’ Training Colleges into secondary schools before independence. The exact date of metamorphosis of these schools cannot be ascertained, hence the original years of establishment was used in listing them.
Primary Schools and Teachers’ Training Colleges that didn’t morph into secondary schools are exempted from the list. Northern Provincial Schools are also exempted because of inadequate information/recorded history. Examples include; Adamawa Provincial Secondary School (Gen. Murtala Muhammed College), Yola (1920) Katsina Provincial Secondary school (Government College, Katsina) (1930)
By Adelowo Adebumiti (Lagos), Njadvara Musa (Maiduguri), Rauf Oyewole (Bauchi), Ahmadu Baba Idris (Birnin Kebbi) and Abba Kabara (Gusau)
In recent times, Nigeria’s school system has come under violent attacks, as bandits target schools to kidnap children and teachers at will. The effect of these attacks has further exacerbated the fragile school system, which is antithetical to sustainable and national development.
Despite measures put in place to tackle insecurity, attacks on schools have been on the increase. There are fears that if not proactively addressed, the situation in schools, especially in the north will portend long-term danger to the quality of labour force and human capital needed to drive a sustainable economy.
In any education system, peace and tranquility are antidotes for successful teaching and learning. So far, millions of school children in Nigeria are caught up in conflicts that have resulted in insecurity not only in terms of the drop in attendance, but aid threats to life and property. Regular school attendance is crucial to the education and development of school children in any country. There is always a negative impact on the educational development of the child, the school, and the community when children do not attend school regularly.
Because of this, there are laws in many countries that require a child to attend school until 18 years of age. A child who attends school regularly is likely to learn and become more successful than those who do not. Parents who make regular school attendance a priority also are helping their children to learn. In addition, regular school attendance is an important ingredient for academic success and successful life.
Kidnapping for ransom by armed groups, many of who carry guns and ride motorcycles, are common across many northern states.
Nigeria has one of the world’s highest numbers of out-of-school children, according to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). A wave of school kidnappings has worsened the situation, with some states in the north closing down schools until security is guaranteed.
UNICEF, while faulting the closure said it is not the best approach. it noted that the recent spate of abduction is having a huge impact on education in Nigeria. Country representative, Peter Hawkins said at a time when the pandemic was rife, and some parents have withdrawn their children, or have not sent them back to school, insecurity, and threats to educational facilities can only compound an already difficult situation.
Hawkins said: “The solution to insecurity in schools is not to close schools down. It is to improve the security, improve connections between schools and communities so the communities themselves offer some semblance of security.”
Similarly, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) spokesperson, Emmanuel Hwande noted that the closure would disrupt the free flow of the academic calendar as well as the flow of children’s educational pursuit.
Thirty-seven per cent of global abductions last year took place in sub-Saharan Africa, putting it above all other regions, according to Control Risks, a security firm.
With the kidnappings in northern Nigeria, “for some students, that’s the end of their academic life,” said Muhammad Galma, a retired army major and security expert. “No parent would want to endanger his or her child’s life simply because of education.”
The minister of state for education, Emeka Nwajiuba, recently came under attack over his pronouncement that the responsibility of securing schools lies with school managers and locals, declaring that Nigerians must be vigilant so as to end attacks on schools and abduction of students.
Vice-Chancellor of the Nigerian Army University, Biu, Borno State, Prof Mohammed Kyari, blamed the Federal Government for increased abduction of students in northern schools by bandits, saying the government has been indirectly fuelling insurgency with ransom payment for the release of abducted school children.
And worried by the cases in the northern part of the country and subsequent closure of schools in affected areas, educationists have canvassed a holistic approach to tackle the development and appealed to leaders to ensure that learning in the region is not truncated.
In Borno State, for instance, various primary and secondary schools in Maiduguri metropolis, Biu, Gwoza, and Bama towns have been rebuilt with perimeter fencing and barbed razor wires, apparently to prevent a repeat of Chibok incidence.
But in places like Guzamala, Marte and Abadam that are still under Boko Haram control, schools are still closed after torching them between 2014 and 2019.
Speaking on the impact of schools closure in the north coming after COVID-19 lockdown and implications on the educational system, a former Chairman, All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPPS) in the North-East, Dr. Mudi Jahun Mohammed said shutting down schools to prevent attacks poses more threats to communities, as children out of school are readily available for criminals to recruit.
Mohammed who is also the Centre Manager, National Teachers Institute (NTI), Kaduna, said: “If you close these schools because of kidnapping, you’re also helping to develop another local insecurity. The students are contained in school where attention is focused on teaching and learning, but when they are at home, their parents lack the strength to control them. In that case, they become another source of threat to the community.”
Mohammed noted that the practice of dropping out of school contributed hugely to youth restiveness, which he said, breeds hooliganism in the region.
He added that shutting down schools would adversely affect the academic calendar, particularly of external examination bodies. “These bodies will not wait for students in the region, how do you explain that you have not covered the syllabus to meet up with other schools?”
Mohammed advised the government at all levels to do more intelligence gathering for preventive measures against attacks on schools and not remedial action.
“Most of the schools don’t have security personnel and if there are, the numerical strength of bandits with AK 47 outnumbers the school security team, who are only armed with a stick,” he said.
He urged state governments in the region to temporarily convert boarding schools today pending when lasting solutions to the kidnapping of students and staff would be proffered.
An educationist and a retired teacher, Alhaji Usman Hassan, who expressed dismay over cases of kidnapping in the north, said parents may stop their wards from attending school if the situation persists.
He said education would continue to suffer if the government fails to tackle the challenges and secure the lives of pupils.
On his part, Kebbi State Chairman of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Issa Umar, said the government should act fast by finding lasting solutions to the kidnapping of students. The state Commissioner for Basic Education, Alhaji Muhammad Magawatta Aliero said parents and communities must complement the government’s effort at safeguarding and promoting the sector.
He said investment in education is capital intensive and the government alone cannot bear it.
Commenting on the effects of school closure on education, Director, Quality Education of Zamfara State Basic Primary Education Board (SUBEB), Alhaji Aminu Musa Kanoma lamented that primary education at the grassroots has suffered a major setback in terms of learning.
Apart from missing long periods of learning as a result of insecurity and attacks, Kanoma said there were other important items lost to the infamous COVID-19 lockdown.
Kanoma observed that as a result of the long period of stay-at-home associated with coronavirus pandemic, “several instructional materials were destroyed by termites, which will take time and resources to replace.”
According to him, the only way to bridge the gap for lost periods is to introduce alternative learning. Kanoma said radio education programmes could continue, but with a lot of advocacy to improve listening and the culture of concentration.
The state Commissioner for Higher Education, Abdullahi Gurbin Baure said the lockdown is a setback for students hoping to conclude their programmes within the stipulated time.
A lecturer with Federal University Gusau, Dr. Anas Sank Anka said though education has been adversely affected due to unrest and kidnapping in the region, he said the situation is a lesson for the nation to adjust its educational system and policies.
“We must look inwards, return to the drawing board and start a new and workable educational plan as a nation,” Anka added.
Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun on Thursday gave the overall best graduating student of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Oladimeji Shotunde, a two-bedroom bungalow and N2,000,000 on behalf of the state government.
He also gave 15-year-old Miss Odunsi Faith of Ambassadors College, Ota laptop, pledging to set up an education endowment fund in her name with N5,000,000 as a take-off seed fund for emerging first in the Global Open Mathematics Tournament.
The two are indigenes of Ogun State.
The governor spoke at the presentation of outstanding 23 teachers and learners – all indigenes of the state- during the celebration of “Ogun Academic Laureates 2021” in Abeokuta.
Another beneficiary is Olalekan Adeeko, a teacher at Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta, who was given a two-bedroom bungalow for emerging first at the 2020 African Union Continental Teacher Award.
The teachers and learners were selected based on their outstanding performance in public academic competitions in 2020 and 2021, cutting across JETS competitions, projects and quiz in Mathematics, Basic Science, Basic Technology, Agricultural Science, Physics and Biology.
The governor said his administration, on assuming office, focused on infrastructural development; human capital development; provision of conducive environment, among others, to redeem the state’s education sector and restore its lost glory.
“This is why immediately on assumption of office on May 29, 2019 we declared a state of emergency in the education sector. It was a methodical and calculated approach to rescue the education sector from the dwindling fortunes inflicted on it by the indifference of the past,” he said.
Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, who participated in the ceremony virtually, congratulated the outstanding learners and teachers for making Ogun State proud.
He promised to host them soon in his Abeokuta home within ‘Jegba forest.’
Gov. Brad Little Thursday signed state superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s bill encouraging school district to provide in-person learning to the greatest extent possible during an emergency.
Ybarra faced a long road getting her bill out of committee. She began promoting the bill before the session, faced concerns from superintendents, then had to rewrite the bill after the House Education Committee voted unanimously to kill her original proposal. The rewritten House Bill 175 eventually passed in both House and Senate chambers.
Ybarra began working on the bill after hearing from parents and constituents who were frustrated with online learning and school closures during the pandemic.
“We all had a common goal to support our schools and students to achieve, and this bill — which is now the law in Idaho — will ensure that our students have the instruction they need to achieve and succeed,” Ybarra said in a news release about the bill signing.
*Nampa students fundraise snacks for state testing days
A group of fifth-grade students at Nampa’s online school are running a “snack drive” to collect supplies for Treasure Valley students.
Teacher Courtney Craner says her class got the idea to collect money and snacks after she asked their families for help putting together “test kits” with snacks and drinks for students while they participate in state standardized testing. Craner’s class of 28 wanted to extend that kindness to other students in their district.
The students set up a Go-Fund-Me account to collect donations and are hosting an in-person snack dropoff at Parkridge Elementary School, 3313 E. Park Ridge Drive, Nampa, on April 28, from 3 to 6 p.m.
*Boise students advocate for Simpson’s salmon plan
Boise High School students wrote 500 postcards to Little and Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch last week to advocate for Rep. Mike Simpson’s Colombia Basin Initiative.
The $33.5 billion plan calls for breaching four lower Snake River dams in an effort to aid Idaho’s wild salmon and steelhead populations. Simpson suggests subsidizing alternative infrastructure in communities that rely on the dams for energy creation, shipping and tourism. The congressman hasn’t proposed legislation yet, but hopes to rally the support of Idaho’s state leaders, tribal communities and stakeholders around a plan for removing the dams.
Shiva Rajbhandari, the sophomore class president of Boise High, said he and other students decided to get involved after listening to Simpson’s proposal at a Boise City Club meeting in March. Students delivered postcards to Little’s office on Thursday, Earth Day, and plan to host a COVID-safe Salmon Run Earth Day celebration at the Idaho capitol at noon on April 24.
“This is our future we’re talking about. I hope our elected officials take action to protect it,” Rajbhandari said in a news release.
image caption: The three students leading WORN say they are supporting many other pressure groups calling for fee refunds
A group of university students are calling for a day of action to demand fee refunds because of how Covid-19 has affected their learning experience.
The Write Off, Right Now (WORN) group, led by three Screenology students from Bristol, wants 16 April to be used to apply pressure to the government.
It said online learning did not provide the same value for money and students should not be charged their full fees.
The government has previously said fees must be paid in full.
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
Earlier this year Education Secretary Gavin Williamson wrote to the Office for Students (OfS), which is the regulator in England, recognising that some students were worried about the quality of their tuition.
He instructed the OfS “to take swift action where it is clear that quality and academic standards have dropped”.
WORN is encouraging students across the country to “take over” social media on 16 April to spread the message about what they say is an unfair decision to charge full fees for those studying remotely during lockdown, when in-person classes have been banned.
image caption: Scott Weavers said the day of action was aimed at highlighting the “poor standard of education” students had experienced
An online petition, calling for tuition fees to be cut from £9,250 to £3,000, has now received more than 580,000 signatures.
And while the National Union of Students has not called for tuition fee rebates, or a reduction in fees, it is pressing for the creation of hardship funds to be large enough to meet demand.
Student and WORN campaign leader Lianna Denwood said it was time for the government to “take ownership” of the situation and recognise students “haven’t been provided with the education they were sold”.
She called for not just students but their family members to get involved in sharing WORN’s message.
image caption: Student Jamie Cross said the government, not universities, were to blame
Campaign vice president Scott Weavers said it was “morally unfair” for students to have to pay their full fees when education in lockdown had been limited to “inadequate zoom lectures”.
“We were promised when we signed up for university that we would receive sufficient access to facilities, course equipment and social contact to help us achieve our degrees.
“This year we have acquired anything but that standard, and yet we’re still expected to pay full price,” he said.
Fellow vice president Jamie Cross said: “Having to cough up the full whack of tuition fees for a course that has been vastly devastated by Covid-19 has been one of the most disheartening things for me.”
He added that it would be “unfair” to blame universities for the issues over fees.
“The onus is on the government to step in and help students, instead of pointing us back to universities, which do not have the financial ability to compensate their entire student population,” said Mr Cross.
Teachers grapple with how to talk about the murder of George Floyd. Meanwhile, the pandemic and a heightened awareness of racial justice issues may bring a record number of minority students to elite colleges this fall.
On Wednesday, many teachers will have a big topic to discuss with their students: the news that a jury convicted Derek Chauvin of murder for the killing of George Floyd. We reached out to some of the educators who have been in touch with this newsletter to see how they’ll handle it.
Emily Beenen, an English teacher in Albuquerque, N.M., said she will have “just a very simple debrief” with her students, and then ask them some basic questions: What do you think? How do you feel?
“I am not trying to traumatize anybody, but you want to acknowledge their lived experience, but do so in an academic way and in a supportive way,” said Beenen, who teaches mostly Native students. “It kind of gives these names to these things that they already see and know around them.”
Kellie Crook teaches at an all-girls charter school in Baltimore that she said was “99 percent Black.” Like other teachers in the school, she plans to start a conversation with the poem “Allowables,” by Nikki Giovanni, and discuss justice and accountability.Continue reading the main story
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“A lot of my girls have so much more experience with violence and death and negativity than I probably ever will in my life,” said Crook, who is white. “Those experiences matter and they should have every right to express their own opinions about this.”
The verdict caps off a year of fraught conversations in schools about privilege, racism and a society in tumult. It also shows students just how far the country has left to go.
“I know some kids are like, ‘All right that’s George Floyd, but we have people in Philly getting killed all the time, like my homeboy was killed or I just lost my friend,’” Angela Crawford, who teaches 11th and 12th grade English at Martin Luther King High School in Philadelphia, told Chalkbeat. “‘When are they going to find the people who killed him?’”
Beenen has been teaching “The Finkelstein 5,” a short story satirizing a young man navigating his Blackness, and “Between the World and Me,” a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his son about being Black in the U.S.
“We don’t teach any of these things in a vacuum,” she said. “The idea of critical thinking is that you are always critical thinking and making these connections to other texts, in your life, in the news, in politics. ”
Zachary Gosse, a high school special education teacher in Long Island, N.Y., focused his conversations with students on Darnella Frazier, a teenager who filmed the murder and upended the police department’s highly misleading initial description of Floyd’s death.
“If you were in that situation, would you be willing to stand up?” Gosse said he asked his students.
Jasmine Hobson Rodriguez, who teaches English to high school juniors in Hesperia, Calif., structured her Black History month curriculum around police brutality and racial justice, inspired by the George Floyd protests. She structured the project around the theme “The Art of Resistance” and asked: How can social justice or standing up for a cause be beautiful or artistic?
On Wednesday, she will return to their work to help them think through the moment. Some students painted Floyd. Others analyzed songs about police brutality or made websites to collect petitions. Like Beenen and countless other teachers across the country, she will open the floor: How do you feel? What do you think?
“I will make sure my kids have the space to talk about what they want to talk about, or not,” she said. “And then, we’re going to go back to reading ‘The Great Gatsby.’”
From Opinion: “Students need a way of thinking, not a series of conclusions,” Esau McCaulley, a professor at Wheaton College, wrote in an essay for The Times. “But I also believe that students deserve the truth as charitably and carefully as I can deliver it. To ignore these issues is a privilege too many of my Black and brown students lack.
“So we wade into the troubled waters. I let them all know that there is no escape from these issues. There is no place to hide. There is no world where they can live, learn, fall in and out of love, other than the one they inhabit.”
“So we wade into the troubled waters. I let them all know that there is no escape from these issues. There is no place to hide. There is no world where they can live, learn, fall in and out of love, other than the one they inhabit.”
More diversity at elite colleges
Jianna Curbelo, a high school senior from the Bronx, got into Cornell.Desiree Rios for The New York Times
Early data suggests that next year’s freshmen class at many elite universities will have record numbers of Black students, Hispanic students, low-income students and those in the first generation in their families to go to college. These schools admitted a higher proportion of traditionally underrepresented students than ever before.
In part, my colleague Anemona Hartocollis writes, that’s because a wave of 650 more schools dropped their standardized testing requirement because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some critics said testing requirements favored more affluent families who can afford tutors and test prep.
As a result, more minority applicants applied. Across the country, top schools saw enormous increases in the percentage of applications from racial minorities. And the change could stick: Most schools will continue the test-optional experiment next year.
Jianna Curbelo, who lives in the Bronx and got accepted to Cornell, believes the George Floyd protests also had an effect on both her and the admissions officers.
“Those protests really did inspire me,” she told Anemona. “It made it seem like the times were sort of changing.”
MJ Knoll-Finn, senior vice president for enrollment management at New York University, described reading the essays through the lens of the current moment.
“You could tell the story of America through the eyes of all these young people, and how they dealt with the times, Black Lives Matter, the wave of unemployment and the uncertainties of the political moment, wanting to make a difference,” she said.
Around the country
College update
Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressive lawmakers is introducing legislation that would make college tuition free for families earning up to $125,000 a year.
A good read from The Times: Fraternity members at Louisiana State University paid off their longtime chef’s mortgage. At 74, she can finally retire.
An opinion from Cornel West: “Academia’s continual campaign to disregard or neglect the classics is a sign of spiritual decay, moral decline and a deep intellectual narrowness running amok in American culture,” he wrote of Howard University’s plan to dissolve its classics department.
K-12 update
Public high schools in Chicago reopened Monday, more than a year after shutting down.
The United States Department of Agriculture will extend universal free lunch through the next school year.
New York City’s influential teachers’ union endorsed the city comptroller, Scott Stringer, in the race for mayor.
A good read from The Washington Post: Washington, D.C., added more than 4,100 seats for in-person learning in the last quarter of the school year on Monday. The wealthiest ward got 1,705 seats. The two poorest got 48 combined.
Calabar High School is an all-male secondary school in Kingston, Jamaica. It was established by the Jamaica Baptist Union in 1912 for the children of Baptist ministers and poor blacks, and was named after the former slave port Calabar, in present-day Nigeria
The name “Calabar” was brought to Jamaica by slaves from Nigeria, West Africa, where there is an old river-port city by that name.
Afro-Global Education Deliveries 