CONFLICT, DISPLACEMENT AND LIFE AS SELF-SETTLED INTERNALLY DISPLACED CHILDREN: AN APPRAISAL OF SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES IN KADUNA AND KANO STATES NIGERIA

This explorative study used descriptive survey as research design to reach out and aggregate experiences of self-settled IDC in localities in Kaduna state and Kano states North-East Nigeria. Both multistage and purposive sampling techniques deployed in the study allows to unearth 212 self-settled IDC in Kaduna state and 170 in Kano state as participants in the study. The instrumentation used is the modified Qayumi, et.al. (2020) questionnaire on educational need assessment survey of the IDC in Afghanistan. Data collected were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences which elicited both the descriptive, inferential and test of the assumptions made in the study. The findings in the study reveals that majority of settled IDC studied are 11-15years old (56%), followed by those in the age brackets of 6-10years 13%, as those 1-5yeard are only 6%. In addition it is shown that 73% of the sample are male, while only 27% are female. The years in displacement shows that majority of the respondents (60%) spent 6-10 in displacement and as resettled persons. While, 29% of the sample are on 11-15 years, as only 11% of the sample were in 1-5years of displacement. Majority of the respondents state of education is Primary school at 44%, as only 33% of the respondents attends Junior Secondary Schools. Some 9% of the respondents attends Senior Secondary School, as only 6% each of the respondents gained Diploma or graduates. Majority of the respondents (89%) work to help sustained their life as settled IDC, only 20% of the respondents reported not engaging in any forms of manual work in this regard. The educational challenges reported by most subjects of the study are poor access to free and quality education, inability to pay school fees, lack of access to personal learning resources and transportation to school. The study recommends among other things that, the Federal Government through its National Population Commission should development elaborate research framework to engage in detailed nationwide study of the self-settled IDC outside Borno and Yobe states. KEYWORDS: displacement, internally displaced children, self-settlement, social and educational challenges