Nigerian Senate seeks revival of Almajiri schools built by Jonathan
- The Nigerian Senate has admitted that almajiris constitute a social nuisance in the society
- The Senate is now seeking to revive the Almajiri schools built by former President Goodluck Jonathan in northern Nigeria
- The schools and the programme have since been abandoned by the present administration
The Nigerian Senate is seeking the revival of Almajiri schools built by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Senate's position was revealed in a motion sponsored by Senator Adamu Aliero, a former governor of Kebbi state and former minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
The motion is titled: “The Need to Integrate Almajiri Education into Modern System of Education in Nigeria.”
Aliero, an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator, noted that the past administration of Jonathan embarked on a laudable project by building Almajiri integrated model schools in which Almajiri children were enrolled and given both Islamic and Western education.
However, Aliero lamented that currently, “some of the structures are either laying fallow or put into uses other than what they were originally intended for and some of the facilities in the Almajiri Model Schools are already decaying as they have never been put to use.”
“We have more than 14 million out-of-school children, most of them being Almajiri roaming the streets of our major cities in Nigeria begging for alms and food,” he added.
Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan, agreed with the sponsor of the motion, noting that there is a need to integrate Almajiri education into modern educational system in the country.
Lawan who lamented that out-of-school children are a big challenge facing Nigeria as a nation said the problem has constituted both social and security challenges to the country.
His words: “We all know that the out-of-school-children are at the moment a big problem to us as a country. They constitute not only social problems but also security problems to some extent.
“Therefore, it is our responsibility to do whatever we can to ensure that they are enrolled in primary and secondary schools.”
The Senate, therefore, resolved to:
1. Call on the federal government to upgrade the existing almajiri model schools and build more to increase the number of schools enrollment thereby reducing the number of out of school children on the streets;
2. Mandate its committee on basic and secondary education to come up with ways and means of collaborating with state governments on how to get the fourteen million children that are currently out of school enrolled in basic and secondary education programme; and
3. Call on the National Orientation Agency to initiate a sensitization program specifically on the issue of the almajiri and its negative impacts in children in the society especially in the northern part of Nigeria.
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Meanwhile, the wife of Kebbi state governor, Hajiya Aisha Abubakar Bagudu has promised that her foundation, Mass Literacy for The Less Privileged and the Almajiris Initiative (MALLPAI), would continue to cater for the poor in the society.
Hajiya Bagudu assured that her foundation will continue to give back to society through the foundation, adding that MALLPAI foundation has commenced training of teachers and mallams in northern Nigeria.
“We are training them into the new system so that they will able to train the young ones. Without primary school education, we don't have anything because that's the base.
“We are also training the Islamic schools as well, the mallams there. So that they will be able also to teach those children properly,’’ she said.
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