EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES AND NATIONAL DEVELOPEMENT: BRIDGING THE GAP IN EDUCATING INTERNALLY DISPLACED CHILDREN

Abstract

The paper looks at education as philological concept. What type of life is expected of the learners or young recruits to the society when their education is halted or totally cut off? That Nigeria did not achieve the target of the Education for All (EFA) goals and goal 2, target 3 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and currently struggling with attainment of all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by world stakeholders in 2030 is no longer news.What is news however, and particularly worrisome is that the Country is bedeviled with over 10 million out-of-school children and increasing conflict situations. What happens to the quest for education of children in these emergency situations?  How does the Ministries of Education in the Country, Development Partners and Stakeholders in the education industry provide adequate and well compensated teachers, teaching aids and basic infrastructure to the internally displaced Children Camps? The paper analyzed these situation closely and its attendant consequences for the overall national development of the Country.  The impact of violence or crisis, wars, natural and man-made disasters and insurgencies like the notorious and intractable bandits ravaging the North West and Boko Haram in the North East Zones are quite exemplary. The paper recommends that to ensure a peaceful society, free of sectarian and ethno-religious crisis etc. all stakeholders must work together and an enduring political will on the part of the Nigerian Government is a key to providing quality education to crisis affected children.