By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

Education is the key to the development of any society. For any country or society to build a prosperous future, the education of the young ones from infancy to the teenage level should be a priority. It’s said that a strong foundation is essential for a successful life. And like Haile Selassie puts it, “when a solid foundation is laid, if the mason is able and his materials good, a strong house can be built.”

It could be said that the establishment of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) was an attempt to build a solid educational foundation for the future leaders of the country. UBEC has taken giant steps in sustaining the implementing Environmental and Social Safeguarding measures across educational institutions under its purview. Implementing at the States level are the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) in Nigeria.

Environmental Safeguards are measures put in place to protect natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity during development projects. While Social Safeguards are strategies to ensure protection and promotion of 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, greenery amongst others while the social aspect deals with the sexual abuse and harassment, bullying, physical and emotional abuse amongst others.

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. This is a comprehensive goal to achieving environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive growth in Basic Education Sub-Sector.

Environmental and Social Safeguards commenced in UBEC during the implementation of the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) Programme in 2019. As it is a crucial requirement for any World Bank supported Project.At the National level (UBEC) constituted a nine (9) team members drawn from various departments and under the office of the Deputy Executive Secretary Technical. UBEC engaged a coordinating Consultant last August 2023.

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has taken giant steps in sustaining the implementation of Environmental and Social Safeguarding measures across educational institutions under its purview. At states level, the responsibility is on the shoulders of the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs).

The main objectives of these safeguarding measures include. 

protecting learners from abuse and maltreatment ranging from sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and school related gender based violence .  A teacher touching a learner inappropriately, is a good example of sexual harassment. School Related Gender Based Violence could also be beating or hitting someone with an object.

It also ensures the protection of the environment and social well-being of learners (students) and staff within the education sector. This includes promoting sustainable practices, ensuring health and safety standards are met, and fostering a positive impact on local communities. The safeguarding measures promote environmental and social sustainability to avoid, minimize or mitigate adverse impact and promote successful implementation of environmental and social impacts in school environment, promote public and workers from potential risks as well as avoiding, minimizing, or mitigating adverse impacts on natural habitats and physical cultural resources in the school environment.

The implementation of Environmental and Social Safeguard covered all the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja. Additionally, the capacity of SUBEBs Safeguard Team on Environmental and Social Safeguard for all the 36 States and FCT were developed. It is worthy to note that during the BESDA programme, the safeguard initially covered the seventeen (17) focus states.

Numerous strategies have been adopted in the implementation of Environmental and Social safeguards in states and some of the strategies include the provision of first aid boxes, complain boxes, hand wash and sanitizers, 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 by the UBEC management to ensure policies and measures put in place to check abuse and molestation, are adhered to. They also ensure inclusion of unaccompanied/displaced children.

encourage boy child/girl 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. The other strategies 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.

There have been remarkable activities around Environmental and Social Safeguard. Series of meetings were held to develop a work plan to ensure seamless implementation of activities towards achieving the BESDA Safeguard objectives. Some of the achievements from November 2019 till December 2022 are the formation/establishment of Safeguard Teams across the 17 BESDA focus States. States were visited for various reasons as regards peculiarities. The Niger State has to study their mode of operation in preparation for all BESDA. it was successful with lots of views, experiences and opinion exchanged between the visiting team and the State team which assisted in informing progressive planning. In Kaduna State, a fact-finding mission visited the Almajiri captives’ abuse widely reported in the media. The visit exposed the exact state of the issues. The UBEC/World Bank BESDA Safeguard Mission visited Kano state. This visit was a successful awareness trip because the team got to know that some information aired about the Almajiris are not correct or sometimes blown out of proposition.

Also in Katsina State, UBEC/World Bank BESDA Safeguard Mission visit was a successful awareness trip because the team got to know that some information aired about the Almajiris are not correct or sometimes blown out of proposition. The Borno State assessment visit to spot-check some Almajiri Model schools was a huge success because there were interactive sessions that informed for transformation.

With the success story so far, UBEC developed a framework and implementation strategies for environmental and social safeguard to assist BESDA states. The framework aided the focus states with the putting in place the safeguard component.

The Commission organised a successful and highly interactive two-day training workshop for the 17 SUBEBs’ BESDA safeguard teams, which was facilitated by the World Bank. The training yielded good results especially in the area of constant communication and keeping abreast with important information on safeguard measures amongst the team members. It reviewed and approved SUBEBs’ BESDA safeguard work plan for the year 2020, 2021 and 2022. A report on the assessment of the repatriated Almajiri learners in the 17 BESDA focal states in response to Covid-19 pandemic was written and submitted and training for UBEC BESDA safeguard, technical officers, zonal directors and state coordinators on GBV/SEA/SH was held in Lagos.

Specialist Safeguard/GBV Consultant were hired to head the implementation of the Safeguard/SRGBV, Action Plan as well as hiring of NGOs to assist in the establishment of the SRGBV prevention implementation structures in Schools across the 17 BESDA focus states. Code of Conduct guidelines to schools across the 17 BESDA focus states were developed and distributed. It conducted survey visit to analyse key areas of intervention in preparation for a GBV service provider mapping and risk assessment survey in BESDA states, engaged two NGOs (Roost Foundation and Girl Child Concern) to support the 17 focus states in risk assessment and service mapping, developed advocacy and sensitization posters in the three major languages and English for both formal and non formal schools, trained state actors to set up grievance redress mechanism and reporting channels which included setting up disciplinary committees, organized capacity development training on best practices required for safeguard procedures for relevant UBEC officers and inaugurated 

Environmental and Social Safeguard Team in states.

There was also verification of NGOs conducts of risks assessment and GBV service provider mapping in BESDA states. In all, twenty (20) UBEC and SUBEB officers participated in the international study tour on “Required Best Practices for Environmental and Social Safeguard Procedures in Schools” held in Kigali, Rwanda in December 2022.

However, the success story did not come without challenges. The challenges 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. There were inadequate capacity building measures and training for guidance and counsellors officers in the schools. Another challenge encountered was lack of sensitization 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 was the challenge of timely reporting and submission of reports on Grievance Redress Mechanism process.

After BEDA programme, activities were conducted such as the full implementation of environmental and safeguard activities that took off February 2024, nationwide survey on environmental and social safeguards from February to March 2024, training on general principles of ESS which was cascaded to the 36 States of the federation and FCT, environmental and social safeguard verification visits to schools in the states and high level focus meeting for the management of SUBEBs.

So far, remarkable achievements have been recorded since its institutionalization in the Commission. Some of them include the high level of awareness on environmental and social safeguards in the SUBEBs and the schools 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 who is referred to as a survivor and also what to be done to the culprit. The management teams of SUBEB 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. Presently, 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 and UBEC implementation of E&SS has awakened a lot with many learners opening up and speaking out.

Overall, the commitment to environmental and social safeguarding by SUBEBs under the supervision of UBEC is leading to a more awareness that will assist in curbing and reducing many of the social vices as well as environmental hazards in schools.