By December 2020, 4,878 refugees (2,513 men and 2,365 women) had been enrolled in different learning institutions, including 3,832 in primary, 655 in lower secondary, 347 in upper secondary, and 44 in higher learning of university and tertiary education. Primary education recorded the highest number of learners with 3,829 (1,972 boys and 1,857 girls) school going children being enrolled into primary school in Cross River, Benue and Taraba states. 1,004 (510 boys and494 girls) enrolled in secondary schools; 32 receiving DAFI scholarships enrolled in National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Nigeria. 12 other refugee learners (eight men and four women) secured Education exchange, scholarship opportunities, this is an online platform for higher education founded by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT that hosts courses from top universities all over the world. This opportunity is made possible by the generosity of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Qatar and Education. offers open and distant learning for those in higher education. EDX beneficiaries include IDPs and returnees selected across camps and out of camp settlement within Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, BAY States.
Despite the fact that primary education is free in Nigeria, and schools are generally not willing to welcome refugees, female or girl-child enrolment is still very low compared to that of males or boy in all levels of education. Related and emerging challenges include lack of basic school learning materials, burdens of family responsibilities among parents, and socio-economic constraints coupled with ongoing pandemic, have increased the of school dropout rate for girl children at all levels of education. Even with free primary education in Nigeria, there are other indirect costs to schooling including uniforms, books, learning materials, registration fees for national examinations, practical examinations, mock examination and parent/teacher association charges that majority of the vulnerable refugees cannot afford. These costs have prevented a great number of Cameroonian refugee children that arrived in Nigeria from accessing education, and only 34% of primary school-aged going children have access to education out of the total 14,293 primary school-aged registered refugee children.
For continued awareness on rights to education in the community, 64 sensitization sessions were conducted on the importance of education, children’s right to education, parental involvement in the child education, gender-based violence and drug abuse. One advocacy campaign was also held jointly with host community leaders in the Ogoja Local Government and the Ministry of Education.
As of December 2020, lower secondary and upper secondary school enrollment drastically reduced because of movement of refugees to and from host community locations. In addition to the ongoing pandemic, long distances and lack of awareness on the start of the school session prevented refugee children from attending, in addition to exposure to risks related to teen pregnancy, which forced many young girls drop out of school.
In the North East, many schools were converted to IDP sites as people fled to places they could get housing and protection from NSAG. This is true for all the IDP sites in the North East including, Government Girl Secondary School, GGSS camps in Monguno, NYCE and Teachers Villages Camp in Maiduguri. This trend effectively stopped education activities in these centres and schools. The Government is currently engaged in relocating IDPs from these institutions and centres to enable education activities to be re-launched.