BY OGUNNIRU TESLEEM AKOREDE
About 10 million children across four countries in West and Central Africa are currently out of school due to massive regional flooding, which has damaged and destroyed infrastructure and displaced nearly one million people from their homes, according to Save the Children.
The unprecedented heavy rains across Nigeria, Mali, Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have created a worsening education crisis with the damage or destruction of schools, the occupation of school buildings by displaced families, and the displacement of families away from schools. These kinds of extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe as a result of the climate crisis.
While the back-to-school season was expected to start at the end of September, all four countries are seeing masses of children missing out on the start of the school year. The 10 million children currently stuck at home or displaced due to floods are in addition to about 36 million children – of which over 20 million are in Nigeria – estimated to, already be out of school in the four countries due to conflict and poverty according to the UN.
At the end of September, Niger declared the postponement of the start of the school year for at least three weeks because of the floods, forcing 3.8 million learners out of school. The floods have also left over 5,520 classrooms in Niger damaged, destroyed, or occupied by displaced families.
Earlier this month, Mali also declared a month’s postponement to the start of the school year. This nationwide decision is impacting some 3.8 million learners from primary and secondary schools.
In Nigeria, at least 3 million children are out of school in Borno state, with 2.2 million children newly out of school due to statewide closures from flooding. Heavy rains have affected 30 of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past month, killing 269 people and forcing 640,000 people from their homes.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the beginning of the year, flooding resulted in the destruction of 1,325 schools and impacted over 200,000 children. As of today, at least 59,000 children are out of school, with the province of Tanganyika most affected. In May, at the peak of the flooding season, another 120 classrooms were destroyed in the province forcing 12,000 children to miss out on school.
Before the flooding, 14,000 schools in Central and West Africa were already closed because of attacks and threats to education. This catastrophic situation makes the already fragile chances of access to education for thousands of children even more dire.
Vishna Shah-Little, Regional Director of Advocacy and Campaigns for Save the Children, said:
“Around the world, the start of a new school year is a time of joy and hope. For many children in West and Central Africa, the start of the school year is synonymous with sadness at the sight of their homes, schools and classrooms underwater.
“As well as seeing their families devastated and their homes destroyed, the children have to come to terms with witnessing the flooding of their education.”
Save the Children is calling for donors to support scaling up the response to the devasting consequences of natural disasters on affected populations, especially children.
Governments and partners must urgently take measures to provide alternative offers to allow children missing out on school to continue their education in this period and ensure as a way forward that schools are more resilient to extreme weather events such as flooding so that children can learn safely.
Save the Children is responding to the situation in central and west Africa by providing emergency relief such as water, sanitation and hygiene kits, health and cash and voucher assistance support for affected families. We are also investing in strengthening national and community-level early warning systems for floods to better anticipate and prepare for such shocks.
In the global response to the climate crisis, Save the Children is calling for national governments to rapidly phase out the use and subsidy of fossil fuels to limit warming temperatures to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels and to include the voices, needs and rights of children in the global response to climate change.
