Unplanned Use of Schools as Emergency Temporary Camps for Displaced Disaster Victims: Implications for Teaching and Learning Outcomes in Nigeria

When schools are inundated and submerged by floods, overwhelmed with extreme drought and heatwaves, lockdown by persistent conflicts crises and banditry, or sudden epidemics like the case of COVID-19 and Ebola, etc, academic activities are disrupted, causing a significant impact on students' learning. Classrooms and educational materials may be damaged or destroyed, leading to school closure and suspension of formal teaching and learning. This paper therefore evaluates the Unplanned Use of Schools as Emergency Temporary Camps for Displaced Disaster Victims and its Implications for Teaching and Learning Outcomes in Nigeria. Its specific objectives were to assess the rationale for designating school facilities as emergency temporary camps during and after a disaster; the effect of unplanned school closure on the children, teachers or staff, parents or family, as well as the school academic calendar; and the key considerations and checklist for preparing schools as temporary camps for displaced disaster victims. The paper noted the absence of adequate preparedness plans, a lack of resilient school infrastructure, a low level of deployment of digital teaching and learning platforms, as well as other adaptive and contingency measures as some of the limitations in the use of schools as temporary camps for disaster evacuees and victims prepared and planned well ahead before a disaster strike. It recommends deploying a new paradigm shift of having adequate contingency planning and preparedness in place before a disaster strikes,in a bid to mitigate the impact of the disruption of already planned school academic calendar and activities, thereby ensuring that formal teaching and learning are minimally disrupted most especially in the Secondary and Primary Schools which are the ones that are regularly used as as temporary camps for disaster displaced victims in Nigeria.