St. Mary's School (Tungan Bakere)

 primary school, secondary school, notable by news, 2008_construction, 2010_construction, notable event

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The international branch campus of the St. Mary's High School in Africa; the St Mary's High School itself is a Catholic institution located in Newry, Ireland. Built through the combined effort of Society of African Missions (SMA) priest Donall Cathain, Rowan Hand and multiple Irish sponsors, the primary school opened in May 2008 while the secondary school opened in September 2010.

The current principal of the school is St. Paulina.
629 students as of 2025.

It is designed for the Kamberi people, an African semi-nomadic ethnic group who are among the poorest in the continent. The students have their own bed in dormitories that allows them to live in the school throughout an academic year due to the far distances they live in. Every day, they wear a new blue uniform and receive three basic meals.

Amidst kidnappings by bandits across Nigeria for ransom, government intelligence warned the school of "heightened threats", but it operated as usual, which ended up with multiple bandits on cars and motorcycles driving up to the school and kidnapping 303 students and 12 teachers on November 21, 2025. For three hours starting at 2:00 a.m., the bandits set fire to a statue of Mary and a Nigerian flag before moving through dormitories while children cried; the guards tasked with protecting the school fled at the beginning.
Realizing the crisis, Nigeria closed 47 boarding schools in the country, including those located near the St. Mary's School, until Christmas. 50 students managed to escape on November 23. 100 more students were released from bushes at random by the bandits on December 7 and were transported on military buses. The former abductees testified that they were forced to sleep in a forest near a river, the elderly were blindfolded and their hands tied with a constant presence of firearms; each time an airplane passed, the abductees were instructed to hide under the trees.
The remaining 213 kidnapped were later freed by the country on December 22.

Even after the kidnapping, the St. Mary's School reopened and resumed education without notifying the state; the Nigerian government secretary sees this as "exposing pupils and the staff to avoidable risk".