The State Project Coordinator of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), Alhaji Ahmed Tijani Oricha, the essence of training teachers is to enable them to mitigate Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in their schools.
Alhaji Oricha stated this in a message to a training programme for principals and male teachers from public and private secondary schools in Lokoja.
Represented by the Gender-Based Violence Officer for Kogi AGILE, Mr James Sunday Moses, the coordinator said the training became necessary following reports of GBV in the society and particularly within school environments.
“AGILE is focusing on the girl-child in public secondary schools. To mitigate the occurrence of GBV cases in schools, we need to train teachers who will cascade the training to fellow teachers. This will help us mitigate GBV in the school environment, especially now that this project is ongoing,” he said.
He explained that construction of classrooms and toilet facilities has brought outside workers into school environments, hence the need to train teachers to be vigilant and prevent violation of the girl-child.
On accountability measures, Oricha said mechanisms have been put in place to ensure the school environment is safe for learning.
“We have the GRM box, complaint registers and hotlines that students can call if anyone tries to harass or violate them. They can report through appropriate channels. We also have referral protocols, GBV service providers, law enforcement agencies, lawyers, NGOs and the Ministry of Women Affairs where we have a dashboard for reporting issues,” he said.
In her remarks, the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) Officer for Kogi AGILE, Mrs Roseline Ozovehe, said monitoring and evaluation teams visit schools periodically to assess compliance.
“In the schools, we have the GRM box and hotlines where complaints can be received in case of any GBV occurrence. Once a report is received, it is escalated to ensure it is addressed. If it is GBV-related, the GBV officer visits the site to get details and ensure resolution,” she explained.
She noted that where issues relate to project rehabilitation, a School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) is set up to address grievances, but where the committee is unable to resolve them, the state office intervenes.
Roseline said GBV cases are not as frequent in Kogi as in other states, attributing this to the presence of NGOs and GBV focal teachers trained under the AGILE project.
Also speaking, the GBV Specialist and facilitator, Joy Oluwaseun Akiola, said several forms of school-related GBV exist, including bullying, physical injury, abuse and sexual exploitation, often fuelled by power imbalance.
“There are prefects and non-prefects, teachers and students. Students sometimes feel their marks are in the hands of teachers and their results could be affected if they do not comply with illicit requests. We are educating teachers that it is a crime to indulge in any form of sexual and gender-based violence, they should be able to identify it early and they themselves must not indulge in it, as perpetrators will be dealt with according to the law,” she said.
She added that GBV focal persons have been trained to handle and refer cases, but the emphasis is on preventive measures to stop violence before it occurs.
In their separate remarks, the Principal of Local Government Secondary School, Kabawa, Dr Danjuma Audu, and the Principal of Army Day Secondary School, Mr Salami Moses, expressed satisfaction with the training.
They said while schools had previously handled GBV cases within the school system, the training has improved understanding on the need to protect the girl-child with care, handle cases with confidentiality and serve as role models, involving female teachers where necessary to ensure proper management.