Education
Niger launches greening schools intervention to tackle climate change – EnviroNews
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The Niger State Universal Basic Education Board (NSUBEB), in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), has inaugurated the Greening Schools and Climate Change Education Intervention in schools across the state.
Gov. Umaru Bago of Niger launched the initiative during the flag-off of the 2024/2025 intervention in Minna on Tuesday, October 6, 2026.
Bago, represented by Dr Hadiza Mohammed, Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, urged school authorities to ensure the sustainability of the initiative by protecting and nurturing the trees to maturity.
He said sustainability went beyond providing seedlings and planting them, stressing that schools must develop effective structures to protect the trees for the benefit of present and future generations.
The governor said properly protected economic trees could provide financial and health benefits to schools and pupils, particularly through the harvest and sale of fruits, while some of the produce could also be made available to pupils.
Bago urged school authorities to involve agricultural experts in identifying suitable locations for windbreakers and other plants, while assigning pupils or groups of pupils responsibility for caring for the trees under adequate supervision.
He said the initiative was aimed at reviving school farming, which had declined over the years, while equipping pupils with practical knowledge that could support their livelihoods in the future.
In his remarks, Dr. Liman Ibrahim-Alhaji, Chairman of NSUBEB, said each school would receive 20 seedlings, comprising five economic trees, such as mango, guava and papaya, as well as windbreakers.
Ibrahim-Alhaji, represented by Mr. Mudi Mohammed, Permanent Member II in NSUBEB, urged head teachers and teachers to ensure that the seedlings were properly nurtured to maturity.
He said the initiative would help schools mitigate the effects of climate change and protect their environments from strong winds and storms.
Also speaking, Hajiya Maimuna Mohammed, Director-General, School Education Reforms in Niger State, said the state had moved beyond the pilot stage of the initiative and was scaling it up across schools with the support of the state government and UBEC.
She said the initiative, described as “STEAM farming”, would expose pupils to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics through practical farming activities, while creating opportunities for schools to produce fruits, vegetables and other food items and contribute to climate change mitigation.
Mohammed said the seedlings included economic trees and plants that would serve as windbreakers and help protect school environments, including school plots that had been encroached upon.
According to her, each child will be made a custodian of a plant to encourage responsibility and ensure that the trees grew to maturity, with school management, NSUBEB and the ministry providing supervision through a monitoring committee.
By Mary Aliyu
