WorldStage– The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has identified severe deficits in educational infrastructure, quality instruction, and basic facilities across Benue State, Nigeria, with children residing in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps bearing the brunt of the crisis.
The critical gaps were brought to light in the Rapid Education Needs Assessment Report, which was unveiled during a multi-stakeholder meeting in Makurdi.
Conducted alongside the Benue State Ministry of Education and Knowledge Management and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), the assessment monitored six Local Government Areas hardest hit by humanitarian crises and conflict.
Speaking at the report’s dissemination, UNICEF Education Specialist from the Enugu Field Office, Mr. Believe Eke, expressed deep concern over how displaced children are frequently sidelined during formal educational planning.
The findings showed that a vast population of children living in conflict-affected communities lack access to primary and foundational education.
Even where learning spaces exist, students are often squeezed into classrooms that are damaged or significantly outdated.
Beyond crumbling classrooms, the assessment flagged a severe scarcity of essential water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure.
Many local schools and camp facilities function entirely without clean potable water or functional latrines, creating a poor learning atmosphere and leaving children exposed to waterborne ailments.
To remedy this, UNICEF has advocated for flexible, non-formal learning alternatives to accommodate pupils whose routines have been upended by displacement.
In response to the crisis, UNICEF has initiated critical on-the-ground support, with the agency has successfully rehabilitating structural facilities at the Abagena IDP camp, facilitating the formal enrollment of over 1,000 displaced children back into school systems.
UNICEF is also actively distributing specialized educational materials, training localized instructional facilitators, and deploying psychosocial therapy to support traumatized teachers and learners.
Representing the State Government, the Permanent Secretary for Secondary and Tertiary Education, Mrs. Helen Nambativ, speaking on behalf of Commissioner Dr. Margaret Adamu, affirmed that the empirical dataset will serve as a foundational roadmap. She assured that the administration is committed to working with international organizations to allocate resources more efficiently and systematically fix the structural deficits plaguing the state’s education sector.
