Jonathan’s N15b Almajiri Schools Rot Away

• Many Lie Waste, Others Converted • Pupils Return To Streets For Alms • Lawmaker Decries System, Urges Reform

Tschools in the North on which former President Goodluck Jonathan spent a whopping N15 billion are waiting for the undertaker. That they are in ruins is to put it mildly.

While some of these schools have been remodelled as convention basic educational institutions, some lay waste because the pupils have returned to their old ways, roaming the streets for alms.

Jonathan, seeing the level of illiteracy in the North, where out-of-school children known as almajiri constitute nuisance, had come up with a lofty idea of building almajiri schools, to reduce street begging and integrate basic primary education in the almajiri system.

But no sooner had he established the schools, which many believe was part of his strategy to worm himself into the hearts of the Northerners to aid his re-election, than he left office for President Muhammadu Buhari. However, Buhari, a Northern Muslim who many believed would take the project up from where Jonathan, a Southern Christian, left it, has more important issues to face.

Kano State, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), hosts about a third of the estimated nine million out-of-school children in the North. It has about 10 of those schools. Majority of the children undergoing the traditional Arabic schools under the almajiri system in the hands of local teachers are left unkempt, as their parents dumped them in Kano from other parts of the North, with little or no care. Expectedly, these innocent kids roam the streets begging to survive.

According to checks, the Kano government has added boarding facilities in the schools and built additional two to meet the growing demand.

The schools, now renamed Tsangaya Model Primary Schools, are located at Dandishe quarters, Albasu, Gaya, Bichi, Harbau in Tsanyawa and Sakuwa in Dawakin-kudu.

Others are in Doguwa, Kibiya, Garo in Kabo, Warawa, Ganduje in Dawakin-tofa and Kanwa in Madobi councils.

They provide free feeding, uniform and instructional materials.

Nevertheless, the 12 schools have limited capacity to check the influx of almajiri in the state. Executive Chairman, Kano State Quranic and Islamiyya Schools Management Board, Goni Dangarga, said the state government “is establishing additional 52 almajiri schools” under the free education policy of Ganduje’s administration to integrate the children into western education.

According to him, the new pilot scheme, expected to kick off first week of October, captures well-trained Mathematics, English, Computer Studies and Integrated Science teachers for Thursdays and Fridays.

“We are aware of the large population of almajiri in Kano and the capacity of the intervention, but we believe the menace of street begging and the number out-of-school children will reduce,” he noted.

An analyst in Jos, Plateau State, Mallam Musa Musawa, told that the almajiri system was designed for religious character development and discipline.

But he argued that the system had been abused. “Virtually in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), you will find an almajiri going round, begging for survival, as if begging is the sole essence of almajiri,” he added. “Some of the almajiri now consist of foreigners.”