“The classroom is Nigeria’s miniature society” —Olalekan A. Babatunde
Nigeria’s education system has a funding gap that deserves urgent national attention. At one end of the education spectrum is basic education, supported by a statutory intervention mechanism through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC). At the other end is tertiary education, where the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has become an important instrument for supporting universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.
Today is the International Day of Peace, a day the world dedicates to observing and strengthening the ideals of peace and reflecting on the state of conflict and violence within and among nations and peoples. This year’s theme is “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.”
For Nigeria, the occasion should prompt a question that goes beyond security operations, peace agreements, and conflict-resolution mechanisms: How do we prepare the next generation of Nigerians to live peacefully with one another? The answer must begin, in part, in our classrooms.
Across different parts of the country, communities have experienced terrorism, banditry, communal conflicts, farmer-herder tensions, separatist agitations, youth violence, electoral tensions, misinformation, and other forms of social instability. Government agencies, security institutions, traditional leaders, civil society organisations and international partners all have important roles to play in addressing these challenges.
But there is another institution whose contribution to peacebuilding deserves much greater attention: the school. In particular, Nigeria’s senior secondary schools represent an important but underutilised platform for building a culture of peace.
Peace is more than the absence of violence. Peace is often understood simply as the absence of war or violence. But sustainable peace requires much more. It requires citizens to coexist despite differences, resolve disagreements without resorting to violence, respect others’ rights, reject discrimination, and participate responsibly in their communities.
These are not qualities that suddenly appear when a person becomes an adult. They are cultivated over time. The senior secondary years are especially important because young people are developing their identities, values, aspirations, and understanding of society. They are beginning to engage more seriously with questions of citizenship, leadership, politics, justice, religion, ethnicity, technology, and their responsibilities to their communities.
What happens during these formative years, therefore, matters enormously. A student who learns that disagreement is not necessarily hostility, that diversity is not a threat, that dialogue is preferable to violence, and that citizenship carries responsibilities as well as rights is acquiring skills that extend far beyond the classroom.
That student is also acquiring some of the foundations of peace. The classroom is Nigeria’s miniature society. Walk into a Nigerian senior secondary school, and one will encounter the diversity that defines the country.
Students come from different ethnic, linguistic, religious, geographical, and socioeconomic backgrounds. They have different family experiences, beliefs, aspirations, and perspectives. This diversity can sometimes produce misunderstanding. But it can also become one of Nigeria’s greatest educational assets.
The classroom can serve as a laboratory for peaceful coexistence. Students can learn to work together on projects, debate controversial issues respectfully, resolve disputes, participate in student leadership, and listen to perspectives different from their own.
Schools can deliberately create environments where students learn that being Nigerian does not require abandoning one’s ethnic, religious, or cultural identity. Rather, national citizenship provides a common platform upon which these different identities can coexist.
This is particularly important in an era when social media can amplify division at extraordinary speed. Peace education must evolve for the digital age. Today’s Nigerian students are not learning only from textbooks and teachers. They are learning from TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, X and other digital platforms. They encounter enormous amounts of information every day—some accurate, some misleading, and some deliberately designed to provoke anger, fear, or division.
Consequently, peace education in the 21st century must include digital and media literacy. Young Nigerians need to understand how misinformation spreads, how inflammatory content is amplified, how images and videos can be manipulated, and why they should verify information before sharing it.
They also need to understand that freedom of expression comes with responsibility.
A young person who can pause before forwarding inflammatory information, question a provocative claim, and engage another person respectfully online is already contributing to a more peaceful society.
Teachers are also peacebuilders. The debate about technology and artificial intelligence in education often focuses on whether machines will replace teachers. But there is an important dimension of teaching that technology cannot simply replicate: the learner’s human development.
Teachers do more than transmit knowledge. They model fairness. They manage disagreements. They encourage dialogue. They teach students to listen. They demonstrate respect for people with different opinions. They create spaces where young people can make mistakes, ask questions, and learn from one another.
In that sense, every good teacher is potentially a peacebuilder. Nigeria should therefore invest not only in teachers’ subject knowledge but also in their capacity to support social-emotional learning, conflict-sensitive education, inclusive classrooms, counselling and peaceful dispute resolution.
Sports, clubs, and extracurricular activities also matter. Peacebuilding does not happen only during formal lessons. Sports, debate clubs, cultural associations, science clubs, student parliaments, volunteer activities, and community-service programs can provide powerful opportunities for young Nigerians to develop teamwork, leadership, discipline, and respect for others.
A football field, for example, can bring together students who might otherwise never interact. A debate competition can teach students that opposing an argument does not mean hating the person presenting it.
Student leadership programs can teach young people how to negotiate, compromise, and make collective decisions. These experiences are important because democracy itself requires citizens who can disagree without destroying the social relationships that hold society together.
Investing in senior secondary education is, therefore, also investing in peace. Nigeria’s education debate understandably focuses on access, infrastructure, teachers, examinations, learning outcomes, technology, and financing.
Quality education can contribute to peaceful societies
A successful education system should not only produce students who can pass examinations. It should produce young people who can think critically, solve problems, cooperate with others, respect differences, reject violence, and contribute positively to society.
This is where the peace agenda intersects directly with the education agenda. Sustainable Development Goal 4 calls for inclusive and equitable quality education, while SDG 16 promotes peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice, and effective, accountable institutions. These objectives should not be treated as separate development agendas. Quality education can contribute to peaceful societies, while peaceful societies create better conditions for education.
For Nigeria, strengthening senior secondary education should therefore be regarded as part of the country’s long-term investment in human capital, social cohesion and national development.
The Federal Government, through the National Senior Secondary Education Commission and other relevant institutions, state governments, schools, teachers, parents, traditional institutions, religious leaders, civil society organizations, development partners, and the private sector, can work together to strengthen peace-oriented education through the aforementioned approaches.
Importantly, peace education should not become another examination subject that students memorise and forget. It should become part of the school’s culture. The way students are treated, the way teachers resolve disagreements, the way school leaders exercise authority, and the way students participate in decision-making should all reflect the values of peaceful coexistence.
Nigeria’s peace dividend starts with its young people. The International Day of Peace offers Nigeria an opportunity to think beyond the immediate management of conflict. But if we want sustainable peace, we must also ask a more fundamental question: What kind of citizens are we preparing for tomorrow’s Nigeria? The answer is being shaped today in thousands of senior secondary classrooms across the country.
Peace is not created only at negotiating tables. It is not secured only by security personnel. It is also taught, practised and experienced in schools. Therefore, as Nigeria joins the world on September 21 to commemorate the International Day of Peace, we should remember one simple truth:
If we want to build a peaceful Nigeria tomorrow, we must teach, model, and invest in peace in our classrooms today. The road to lasting peace may run through many institutions. But one of its most important – and perhaps most overlooked – stops is the senior secondary school.
Peace begins in the classroom. So we must invest in peace for every Nigerian, everywhere and every day.
♦ Dr. Babatunde is a Fellow at Nigeria’s Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, a Part-time Professor at China’s Zhejiang Normal University; writes via austinebabatunde@yahoo.com
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