Next Level: Tackling youth unemployment

One would see them in clusters and at food joints or loitering around the home of privileged people waiting for leftovers. The deprivation experienced by vulnerable youths in Northern Nigeria is visible on streets of major cities where Qur’anic school pupils (almajirai) roam the streets in tattered clothes, hungry and dirty with their bowl in hand begging for food. When they are not in school, the almajirai also spend some time doing menial jobs to survive.

According to UNICEF in its 2003 report, about 10.5 million children in Nigeria are not in school despite primary education being officially free and compulsory.

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Act makes education free but the system is yet to be reformed by the existence of Universal Basic Commission (UBC) and integration of Almajirai into formal schools project embarked upon by the federal and various state govenements.

Their plight was captured at a national symposium on almajiri education organized in June 2013 by the Sokoto State Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Usman Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. Participants at the conference attributed the persistence of almajirci to structural factors such as poor and inadequate funding of educational sector, absence of political will to address the problem and economic pressure on scarce resources aggravated by mass rural poverty.

They also cited other factors such as the high spiritual need for Qur’anic education, less farming activities in the rural area during the dry season and loss of glory of the young secondary school leavers who do not secure jobs to motivate others. Education no longer guarantees jobs for the teeming youth population.

At the symposium on almajiri education, the two of the prominent traditional rulers in the north, the Sultan of Sokoto and the Shehu of Borno have linked youth unemployment to post-election violence and the activities of Jama’atul Ahlisunnah Lidda’awati Wal-jihad (JAS) commonly known as ‘Boko Haram’ respectively.

Maryam Nasir Aliko, Dept. of Mass Comm, BUK