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7,100 Nigerian teachers learn how to support students – and themselves – after trauma

By Chima Onwe

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]BIU, Nigeria — More than 7,100 primary school teachers in Nigeria are returning to their classrooms better equipped to help their students – and themselves – succeed in the wake of the conflict by violent extremists.

In five Local Government Areas of the northeastern state of Borno, a total of 7,169 primary school teachers participated in four-day training sessions, aimed at giving them tools to more effectively reach their students.

The training covered topics on psychosocial counseling, trauma healing, creating a child-friendly learning environment and incorporating social and emotional learning into curricula.

In a region where countless children have been affected by Boko Haram, teachers need these tools to support their students both academically and emotionally.

“In my 10 years plus as a teacher, I have never attended such kind of training,” said Shehu Abdullahi, a teacher in the community of Biu. “I wouldn’t have been able to pay for this training – it cannot be quantified in monetary value. I am eager to go back and practice what I learned in the classroom.”

The trainings were conducted throughout May and June by Nigeria Education Crisis Response – a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International in partnership with the International Rescue Committee and more than 40 Nigerian organizations.

The project aims to expand access to quality education for out-of-school and internally displaced children and youth 6 to 17 by establishing non-formal learning centers that offer accelerated education programs to put students back on a path to consistent school attendance. Across the five northeastern states where it operates, the project also provides support to formal schools.

The state of Borno is at the epicenter of the conflict with Boko Haram. Education institutions have been especially hard-hit. In coordination with the Borno government, the project set out to reach as many formal school teachers as possible with training to help the state rebuild its education systems.

“The training program is coming at the right time and will go a long way in assisting our efforts toward fixing the education sector in Borno state,” said Borno’s Deputy Governor Alhaji Usman Mamman Durkwa as the training began.

Teaching resilience to overcome trauma

Boko Haram has disrupted and displaced millions of people across the region, and its attacks frequently target schools.

In addition to students falling behind on studies due to displacement or closed schools, those returning to the classroom may have endured loss and emotional trauma that can negatively impact their ability to learn.

Using the project’s “Healing Classrooms” approach, the training instructed teachers on how to strengthen students’ sense of control, sense of belonging and safety, feelings of self-worth, relationships with peers and adults, and learning engagement to improve overall well-being.

It also focused on how to infuse social and emotional learning in lesson work – guiding students on how to manage emotions, set goals, show empathy for others and make responsible decisions.

“The teaching methodology we were exposed to in the four days of this training is the fastest way to bring our pupils to speed with the insurgency we have experienced,” said Biu teacher Habiba Audu. “I will apply what I have learned to assist the pupils regain what they have lost.”

The training also gave teachers a chance to reflect on their own needs – more than 300 Borno teachers have been killed by Boko Haram. A baseline study in Borno found that more than 93 percent of teachers experienced trauma and subsequent emotional issues. Many had also been forced out of work, some for years at a time.

A portion of the training was dedicated to allowing teachers to think about how their own well-being and behavior can affect their students.

“We are grateful to the USAID Education Crisis Response Project for not only introducing this training to improve the emotional well-being and pedagogical skills of many of our formal teachers, but also for bringing in many of our out-of-school children into the educational system through the non-formal approach and alternative educational opportunity,” said Waziri Umar Ngurno, Secretary of the Borno State Universal Basic Education Board.

Network of training

The effort to reach thousands of teachers started small: A 28-person group drawn from the project, the government and universities first came together to develop training manuals.

Fifteen national trainers approved the manuals, and from there developed a training guide.

The guide was used to instruct more than 100 “master trainers” on how to facilitate the larger trainings for primary school teachers. That group then led the four-day sessions in five different Local Government Areas: Biu, Jere, Kaga, Konduga and Maiduguri.

Veteran teachers said that such a training was a new experience for them – in its sheer size, organization, and content.

“This training is the first of its kind, it is one year’s training wrapped in four days,” said Mohammed Madu Galadima, a teacher in Biu. “I have learned teaching methods that I can apply to teach my pupils, especially those that are traumatized.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

In Northern Nigeria’s Sokoto and Bauchi states, more than 36,000 children who were out-of-school now have the opportunity to pursue basic education through community non-formal learning centers.

As part of the Northern Education Initiative Plus project, 800 community non-formal learning centers have opened, bringing quality education to thousands of children who otherwise would not have access to schooling.

Barau Ishaq, a community leader in Sokoto, is celebrating one of the new learning facilities where children and youth will learn literacy and math. Ishaq says the non-formal learning center is a needed addition to the community, which is a long distance from a school.

“We have been forgotten for such a long time. In other places, children go to school but for us, our children have to walk several miles to go to school,” he says. “We dreamed that one day we will have something similar within the community and now our prayers have been answered.”

 The Northern Education Initiative Plus project, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative, seeks to improve access and quality of education for more than 2 million school-aged children and youth in formal and non-formal schools. 

At the non-formal learning centers, children between ages 5 to 18 attend classes for a minimum of six hours every week, receive textbooks and are taught literacy, numeracy and life skills to prepare them to be self-reliant in the future.

These centers thrive in communities where many children are disenfranchised from formal education. They run a flexible curriculum and provide opportunities for children without basic education to learn basic skills to do better as artisans, farmers or in business.

Bringing the school to the students

Sokoto’s Attakwanyo, where Ishaq lives, is the largest community in the Gwadabawa local government area. But despite its large size, it only has one primary school.

Operating since 1922, it is arguably the oldest school in the state. Classes take place about four times a year—or whenever the teacher shows up.

In Attakwanyo, very few youth transition to secondary school after primary school and an even smaller number actually graduate.

Many parents in Northern Nigeria simply can’t afford to send their children to school, considering the costs of supplies and uniforms. Compounding the problem, many cannot pursue an education because their help is needed at home or to contribute to the household income, often by working on the farm.

With little or no access to education, many children and youth rely only on Qur’anic schools, where they memorize and recite the holy book. Unfortunately, they do not learn the math, literacy and life skills needed to function effectively in today’s world.

In light of these challenges, the non-formal learning center is a very welcome addition to the community, explains Ishaq, who is partnering with other community members and leaders to sustain the non-formal learning centers and empower even more children and youth to receive a basic education.  

“We are rallying together as a community to sustain this center even when the project ends. We want a future for our children,” he says.

Reaching vulnerable students, sparking a passion for learning

In Nigeria’s northern states, it is not a rare sight to see a large group of students sitting in an open area under the trees, and listening attentively to the learning facilitator teach them to pronounce and use vowels.

A similar scene at a new learning center in Attakwanyo is playing out, with more than 60 children and youth have gathered together to learn.

Although the Northern Education Initiative Plus project’s learning centers can accommodate a maximum of 45 students, the class session has moved outdoors, under the shade of a nearby tree, to make room for even more children.

Not formally enrolled in the learning center, the 15 additional children were willing to sit on the ground to listen to lessons and soak up new knowledge.  

Nine-year old Bilyaminu Ismaila is one of the 45 students enrolled at the new non-formal learning center in Sokoto. For a child who has never attended school, in just two short months he is thriving as a new learner.

 “I never dreamed of going to school. I am so excited. I like my books, and I like my teachers,” says Ismaila, who can now count from 1 to 100, as well as combine consonants and vowels to form words in the Hausa language.

The project’s learning and teaching materials have been edited by Nigeria’s best Hausa and English experts to ensure that Standard Hausa is used and that the materials are embedded in the local culture and traditions.

In Bauchi’s Misau local government area, Aishat Sa’adu is experiencing a similar learning transformation. Sa’adu, who attends classes at a learning center for adolescent girls, can now recognize the letters in the alphabet and can count from 1 to 100.

Sa’adu—who dropped out of school before, got married and was divorced by the age of 16—is immensely proud of these major learning achievements.

The learning center has rekindled her desire for education, she says.

At home, she practices with other children, pairing consonants and vowels together and pronouncing the sounds loudly. She is determined to continue to study hard.

Putting the past behind her and forging ahead to a promising future, Sa’adu proudly explains, “I will complete the program at the center and hopefully further my education.”

More than 30 percent of school-aged children in Northern Nigeria do not have access to basic education. Attacks by the Boko Haram insurgency in the region compound the problem; more than 1 million school-aged children have been forced to flee their homes.

In crisis-affected environments like this, strengthening education systems and enrollment in secure learning environments is critical. Yet reform cannot succeed and be sustained unless all key stakeholders take clear ownership of their respective roles, said experts on a panel at the Comparative and International Education Society conference on March 7.

“A close collaborative working relationship between all of the partners—the project implementers, USAID and the state government is imperative,” said Croshelle Harris-Hussein, Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Education Office in Nigeria.

Opening the panel session called “System Strengthening for Improved Reading Outcomes and Increased Access in Northern Nigeria: Perspectives and Practices from the USAID Northern Education Initiative Plus Program,” Harris-Hussein said that when thinking about system strengthening in education, certain factors should inform the design of the project—such as governance, transparency and accountability. These are necessary to reach the ultimate goal of creating safe learning spaces for all beneficiaries.

Establishing strong local and state governmental systems can result in improved service delivery for teacher training, curriculum development and delivery of instructional materials, she added.

With these best practices in mind, USAID has launched the Nigeria Education Initiative Plus project to rebuild and strengthen the education system and increase access to quality education in Nigeria’s Sokoto and Bauchi states. It is implemented by Creative Associates International.

The project is building program ownership among federal, state and local government education authorities, as well as ensuring commitment to quality early grade reading instruction and access to education.

Early assessments map challenges and guide project design

In Sokoto state, the Northern Education Initiative Plus supports 10 out of the 23 local government areas. Sokoto’s Commissioner of Basic and Secondary Education, Muhammed Jabbi Kilgori, Ph.D, partners with the project to oversee basic education in the targeted schools.

On the panel, Kilgori discussed pre-existing challenges to the education system in Sokoto and Bauchi. “We discovered weak implementation of policy, inadequate political will and lack of proper budgetary allocation and fund release for basic education,” he said.

He also noted several other systemic challenges in both states, such as no existing reading policy and a lack of teaching quality and motivation among teachers—all resulting in low student performance.

A 2011 Early Grade Reading Assessment conducted in Sokoto and Bauchi revealed that more than 80 percent of Sokoto students and 70 percent of Bauchi students assessed scored zero on the oral reading fluency subtask.

The findings from this early grade reading assessment— the first in Nigeria’s Hausa language—have helped inform and shape project priorities such as delivering basic education focused on reading skills, training and managing teachers, budgeting and ensuring school governance is sufficient.

Kilgori added that poor school facilities and a lack of community and parental participation, such as Parent Teacher Associations, are additional challenge for the education system to address.

Given the quality of education offered, Kilgori said families in poverty carefully weigh the cost of keeping their children at home to contribute to the household income versus spending hours traveling back and forth to school and sitting in a classroom all day.

“Parents see no point in bringing their child to school when the classroom isn’t operational and the children go back home knowing nothing,” said Kilgori.

To begin to address these challenges and bring quality education to Sokoto and Bauchi states, stakeholders came together as a cohesive group to establish a strategic plan of action.

“Basic education in Sokoto and Bauchi requires all hands on deck,” said Kilgori. “That means that everyone must work together to address the challenges on the ground.”

Kilgori noted progress is being made in the targeted areas and learning competencies–especially with girls–have improved through the various project interventions.

Rethinking existing basic education policies

Despite the challenges, the coalition of partners working on the Nigeria Education Initiative Plus are optimistic about what their sustained and collaborative efforts to strengthen the system can achieve.

“Education is the most viable platform to empower people,” said Muhammed Bello Yusuf, Nigeria Education Initiative Plus Reading Officer. “The partners are committed, motivated and have the political will to fix problems and to transform Nigeria’s education system.”

All of the partners meet monthly for joint planning and to review the project’s progress and tackle issues that arise. Timely measurement and monitoring of these activities, as well as regularly communicating success and challenges with all of the stakeholders, helps to address issues quickly, explained Yusuf.

Recognizing that states need support to effectively implement these sustainable and systemic education reforms, the project uses an integrated approach to strengthen the education system. The project partners with states to assess in-depth institution capacity; establish Technical Working Groups and Education Steering Committees; strengthens the policy environment; and leverage the expertise of multilevel stakeholders.

The integrated model is essential to the project’s goals, said Musa Salami, Nigeria Education Initiative Plus System Strengthening Specialist.

“To reach the project’s education objectives, bringing all of these key aspects together has been important to articulate why there is a need for education policy reform and how it contributes to state GDP gains,” he said.

Early project achievements are moving in the right direction, he noted.

The two supported states have committed over 20 percent of their annual state budgets to education. They have taken steps to improve systems for book allocation, distribution and utilization, and have enrolled more than 35,000 learners in non-formal learning centers.

This renewed state commitment, along with the support of communities, donors and other partners, is critical to improving quality basic education in the two states, said Garba Gandu, Deputy Director of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council.

“To be sustainable, education system strengthening in the North is everybody’s business– from the local community to government officials,” he said.

Children and youth in conflict-affected countries are more than twice as likely to be out-of-school than their peers in non-conflict countries, reports UNESCO.

Schools that manage to retain students during conflict face other challenges—including insecurity, a lack of materials and limited support for teachers.

Technology-based solutions may help to remedy some of these education challenges in crisis, but only when tailored to the specific conflict context, said project implementers and Information Communications Technology experts speaking on “Conflict Sensitivity in ICT for Education in Crisis and Conflict Programming” at the Comparative and International Education Society conference on March 8.

Working on education in Nigeria’s northern states of Bauchi and Sokoto, where the terrorist group Boko Haram has attempted to take control, Daniel Fwanshishak has seen firsthand the strains on an education system in the midst of conflict, as well as the benefits of targeted technology solutions.

“Every time Northern Nigeria is mentioned of course we think about the conflict going on now,” said Fwanshishak, Teacher Education Officer for the Northern Education Initiative Plus. The project is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International.

Fwanshishak said that conflict in the region compounds pre-existing problems facing students and teachers, such as limited access to education, a lack of resources, deteriorated infrastructure and poor teacher professional development and training.

“What we are doing with the project in Nigeria is trying to bridge the gap that already exists and is already complicated because of the conflict situation, so we are emphasizing access and supporting the system to provide that,” he said, noting that the project works hand-in-hand with Ministry of Education to shore up a sustainable system, even through insecurity.

The project has developed three ICT-based solutions.

To pay teachers, many of whom do not have formal bank accounts and cannot risk their own safety traveling with large cash payments, the project implemented a mobile payment system benefiting 200 teachers in Bauchi and Sokoto states.

To help ensure teachers had the resources they needed to teach students, the project jumpstarted a mobile supply-chain tracking system, by which the state governments, local education offices and then the schools are all notified at each subsequent stage of materials shipment. Schools confirm delivery, which helps to hold education authorities at the state and local level accountable.

Lastly, to motivate teachers working in isolated or insecure environments, with poor training and little support, the project initiated a mobile coaching system through which they could stay connected and receive ongoing support.

As with all interventions in conflict, adaptability is an asset in a shifting security landscape, Fwanshishak added.

“Because of an absence of a very good working environment, sometimes the systems fail, but we take that into consideration…We make it as open as possible and as flexible as possible.”

Tech can supplement, not replace holistic and interactive programming

Technology can provide targeted solutions to specific obstacles in conflict, such as paying teachers where banks are inaccessible, but it is not a substitute for a holistic, conflict-sensitive program, noted panelists.

“The ICT doesn’t work alone. It is embedded in a larger system and it’s not there to replace the human interaction, but there to support it,” said discussant Lisa Hartenberger Toby, Senior International Technical Advisor at Education Development Center.

One example of such a program is the Learning and Empowerment for Adolescent Refugees in Neighborhood program, which aimed to provide learning opportunities for out-of-school Syrian refugee adolescents in Gazientep, Turkey. It was implemented by Mercy Corps, until its operations were closed on March 7 by Turkish authorities.

The program’s intention was to address the unique situations of out-of-school adolescent refugees, including social isolation, especially for girls, nontraditional schedules due to work to support family and misinformation about educational opportunities available to them.

It combined a blended learning model of individual sessions with an instructor, self-study using tablets, peer group sessions with the same instructor and parental awareness sessions.

This blended approach offered an on-ramp to education for students displaced and out-of-school for potentially years, explained Karen Scriven, Senior Director of Strategic Programs at Mercy Corps.

“The tablets allow [the youth] the flexibility of being able to get back into an educational routine without having to risk going out,” she said, especially for young women who may be more restricted in their mobility

Meanwhile, by adding the in-person blended learning components, the programs aimed to prepare adolescents for their unique goals: whether rejoining formal schooling, passing exams, continuing non-formal learning or entering the workforce, said Scriven.

“There’s a lot of different paths these adolescents can take, and we want to be sure that this blended learning program can help them with any of these outcomes.”

Critical considerations for ICT design in conflict settings

Today, more than 65 million people around the world are displaced due to conflict or persecution, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For technology for development designers, this means business can no longer operate as usual.

“The reality is that more and more people across the world and more and more people we work with and partners we work with are working in conflict settings, so that changes a lot concerning what we can do and how we can access our participants and beneficiaries, wherever that might be,” said Ben Donahue, Senior Business Development Manager at technology for development organization Souktel.

In particular, said Donahue, implementers introducing technology solutions into conflict settings must work to ensure safety and security of data and personnel; for example, by sending survey data collected immediately to a server and wiping it from mobile devices to protect survey enumerators from harm.

He said that implementers will also need to understand people’s levels of access to and familiarity with various types of technology, as access can often be limited in conflict-settings and well-intentioned tools may fall flat if they don’t resonate with the intended users and beneficiaries.

“There’s an increasing realization that ICT has a lot of capacity but it needs to be appropriate to the context, especially if you’re working in a conflict setting,” he said.

A last critical piece to using ICT in conflict settings, noted Donahue, is to build relationships with local and trusted partners form the start.

He cited a project designed to use SMS with built-in translation to allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to communicate with and get legal advice from Turkish lawyers.

The app failed to catch on, however, due to the refugees’ hesitation. They did not know or trust the lawyers on the other end of the message. It was only when the tool was paired with well-known and trusted refugee service agencies, as part of a broader array of supports, that the messaging service gained users.

Ultimately, panelists agreed, that should be the driving force behind any ICT solution form design to implementation and revision: developing a tool that works for and supports the intended beneficiaries to reach their optimal outcomes.

And that requires understanding the conflict context, partner and beneficiary needs and sensitivities around the technology itself, concluded Donahue.

“The technology itself is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.