A civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has petitioned four UN Special Rapporteurs and the Special Envoy on Global Education, protesting the imposition of compulsory insurance scheme for students of Federal Government Colleges.
The group asked the UN rapporteurs to use their “good offices and positions to urgently request the Nigerian government to immediately and unconditionally withdraw exploitative insurance scheme imposed on the students on the excuse of protection against attack and violence by Boko Haram.”
Those the group petitioned included Mr. Kishore Singh, special rapporteur on the Right to Education; Mr. Chaloka Beyani, special rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons; Mr. Philip Alston, special rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights; Mr. Ben Emmerson, special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights While Countering Terrorism, and Mr Gordon Brown, Office of the UN Special Envoy for Global Education.
The appeal dated 24 February, 2015 and signed by SERAP executive director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, the group said it “considers this insurance scheme to constitute an abusive practice and renouncement of the obligation by the government to provide education as a public good. The insurance scheme also flies in the face of prohibited grounds of discrimination and amounts to exploitation of the students and parents involved, and a shocking attack on the right of access to education.”
“Rather than expanding public educational opportunities for all Nigerian children especially children from poor families, the government is restricting them, and commercializing education. In its response to the Boko Haram, the government has not prioritized the right of children to quality education. Many Nigerian children are driven to Cameroon as refugees and made to recite Cameroon national anthem as a precondition for attending school,” the organization also said.
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