Environmental, Social Safeguarding of Schools Making Quantum Leaps

Environmental and social safeguards are important to the well-being of schools in Nigeria. The push to have this in place first started with the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) Programme in 2019 in 17 states. The federal government has since moved on with full implementation of Environmental and Safeguard activities in all the states and FCT. The project has started achieving milestones. Michael Olugbode reports

Environmental Safeguards are measures put in place to protect natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity during development projects. Social safeguards are strategies to protect and promote human rights, cultural heritage, and the well-being of affected communities. The two main safeguarding components within the schools are environmental, which has to do with structures and greenery, among others, while the social aspect deals with sexual abuse and harassment, bullying, and physical and emotional abuse, among others.

The National Coordinator of Environment and Social Safeguarding in Schools, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Mrs. Stella Blaize, disclosed that the goal of environmental and social safeguards is to promote the environmental and social sustainability of BESDA-funded projects by protecting learners, their environment and other factors from potential adverse impacts, and enhancing benefits being provided by the scheme.

She stated that environmental and social safeguards commenced in UBEC during the implementation of the BESDA programme in 2019, which is a crucial requirement for any World Bank-supported project. At the national level, UBEC constituted a nine-member team drawn from various departments and under the office of the deputy executive secretary Technical. UBEC engaged a coordinating consultant in August 2023.

According to her, UBEC, to achieve the objectives of environmental and social safeguard in schools across the country, took giant steps in sustaining the implementation of environmental and social safeguarding measures across educational institutions under its purview. The State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) are implemented at the state level.

Blaize noted that the objectives include protecting learners from abuse and maltreatment like sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and school-related gender-based violence, among others.

Protecting learner and teacher safety against any potential risks associated with the construction and operations of facilities or other operational practices; exposure to toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes, and other dangerous materials; and reconstruction or rehabilitation of infrastructure in schools or centres prone to natural hazards.

Other objectives include ensuring the protection of the environment and social well-being of learners and staff within the education sector, promoting sustainable practices, ensuring health and safety standards are met, and fostering a positive impact on local communities.

Implementing environmental and social safeguards covered all 36 states and the FCT. Additionally, the capacity of SUBEBs’ team on environmental and social safeguards for all the 36 states and FCT were developed. It is worthy to note that during the BESDA Programme. The safeguard initially covered the 17 focus states.

Numerous strategies have since been adopted in the implementation of environmental and social safeguards in the states, some of which include The provision of first aid boxes, complaint boxes, hand wash and sanitisers, complain registers, etc.; training of SUBEBs’ safeguard team on gender-based violence, sexual exploitation abuse and sexual harassment (GBV/SEA/SH).

These strategies were carried out to ensure policies and measures put in place to check abuse and molestation adhere to ensure inclusion of unaccompanied/displaced children; encourage boys and girls’ child enrolment in learning centres; ensure the provision of standard sanitary facilities in learning centres most especially for girls; ensure the formation of guidance and counselling outfits, as well as mentorship forums at the learning centres, LGEAs and SUBEB level; encourage balanced female/male teacher ratio in learning centres; ensure inclusiveness (vulnerable groups/physically challenged); ensure adequate use of incentives to encourage enrolment and retention in learning centres; ensure the existence and functionality of complaint desk and suggestion boxes in learning centres; adherence to complaint management mechanisms and redress structure; ensure timely resolution of complaints; identify the type of grievances and provide proper redress mechanisms; and provision and sensitization on the available channels of reporting cases of child abuse, molestation, violence and land dispute complaints.

With huge tasks to be accomplished, a series of meetings were held to develop a work plan to ensure seamless implementation of activities towards achieving the BESDA safeguard objectives. So far, the component achieved the following from November 2019 till December 2022: formation/establishment of safeguard teams across the 17 BESDA focus states: states were visited for various reasons regarding peculiarities.  

A framework and implementation strategies for environmental and social safeguards were developed to assist BESDA states with implementation. The framework aided the focus states by putting the safeguard component in place; training were organised for the 17 SUBEBs’ BESDA safeguard teams facilitated by the World Bank safeguard team. Feelers showed that the training yielded good results, especially in terms of constant communication and keeping abreast with important information on safeguarding measures among team members. The reviewed and approved SUBEBs’ BESDA Safeguard Work plan for 2020, 2021 and 2022 were done; a report on the assessment of the repatriated Almajiri learners in the 17 BESDA focal states in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was written and submitted; training for UBEC BESDA safeguard, technical officers, zonal directors and state coordinators on GBV/SEA/SH was held in Lagos; a successful training for UBEC BESDA safeguard team, technical officers, SUBEBs BESDA Safeguard UBEC zonal directors and state coordinators on GBV/SEA/SH/SRGBV was conducted 

Blaize revealed that: “constituted and trained regulating teams, guidance and counselling mentors in all the LGEAs across the 17 BESDA focus states.

Some of the challenges encountered during BESDA ranged from financial to other essentials. Some of the notable ones are inadequate funds to carry out safeguard activities and lack of support to the state safeguard teams; monitoring for efficiency and effectiveness and SRGBV reporting protocols in schools and learning centres were undervalued; inadequate capacity building measures and training for guidance and counsellors officers in the schools; lack of sensitisation across the board. 

A lot of the staff within the schools or learning centres do not understand what environmental and social safeguarding is all about, and there is a challenge of timely reporting and submission of reports on the grievance redress mechanism process.

Full implementation of environmental and safeguard activities took off February 2024 with activities conducted including a nationwide survey on environmental and social safeguards February- March 2024; training on general principles of ESS, which was cascaded to the 36 states and Abuja; environmental and social safeguard verification visits to schools in the states and high-level focus meeting for the management of SUBEBs.

Since its institutionalisation in the commission, the environmental and social safeguards have recorded huge achievements, some of which include the awareness of environmental and social safeguards is high now in the SUBEBs and the school’s environment; a greater consciousness of what environmental and social issues within the schools are and the actions to take and how to handle both serious and non-serious issues. There are safeguarding policies to support the victim, referred to as a survivor, and also what to do to the culprit. The management teams of SUBEBs, through the monitoring and mentoring of UBEC, are now actively involved and aware of the importance of these measures, and it is leading to improved practices and outcomes with more learners feeling safe in school.

Currently, with the just concluded high-level focus meeting for the SUBEBs management team across the 36 states and the FCT, the process of enforcement is on in schools; UBEC implementation of E&SS has awakened a lot with many learners opening up and speaking out. However, achieving the set goal is still a long way to go.

Overall, the commitment to environmental and social safeguarding by SUBEBs under the supervision of UBEC is leading to more awareness that will assist in curbing many of the school’s social vices and environmental hazards. It is only hoped that the fire is keep burning.