The Adamawa State Government has commenced the fencing of government schools, particularly those located in rural communities, as part of measures to strengthen security and reduce the risk of attacks and kidnapping involving students and teachers.

The Executive Chairman of the Adamawa State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Dr Murtala Umar, disclosed this in Yola while speaking on the administration's ongoing efforts to improve education and school safety.

Umar said the fencing of government secondary schools was already underway, with the state government working towards creating a more secure environment for pupils, students and teachers.

He said teachers would also receive security-related training to help them recognise potential threats and take appropriate preventive measures.

The move comes against the backdrop of persistent security challenges affecting schools and communities in parts of northern Nigeria, where attacks and kidnappings have previously disrupted education.

Beyond physical security, the Adamawa government is also preparing to recruit another 3,000 teachers to address manpower shortages across the state's education sector.

According to Umar, the next recruitment exercise will adopt a community-based approach, with priority given to qualified applicants who live in the communities where the schools are located.

He explained that the strategy was designed to reduce a recurring problem in which teachers recruited for rural schools later seek transfers to urban areas, leaving schools in remote communities understaffed.

Under the proposed arrangement, teachers recruited through the programme would be selected from the areas where the schools are situated, with the expectation that they would remain available to serve their local communities.

Umar said the state administration had continued to prioritise education as part of its development programme.

He also said the state had accessed and utilised funding from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), which he attributed to the construction of more than 25,000 classrooms across schools in Adamawa under Governor Ahmadu Fintiri's administration.

The SUBEB chairman further stated that more than 4,000 teachers were recruited between 2021 and 2023 for primary and post-primary schools.

He added that the state had recently completed another recruitment exercise involving 5,000 teachers, although the details of the distribution of those recruits across different levels and locations were not provided in the statement.

The planned additional recruitment of 3,000 teachers is therefore expected to complement the existing workforce and address remaining staffing gaps, particularly in rural communities.

The combination of school fencing, teacher security training and community-based recruitment reflects an attempt to address two separate challenges facing education in the state: the safety of schools and the difficulty of retaining teachers in remote areas.

For parents and communities, the success of the measures will ultimately depend on the completion of the fencing programme, effective security arrangements and the sustained deployment of qualified teachers to underserved schools.

Reporting by TalkNaijaMedia