Recently, the Federal Ministry of Education received a report on how it can integrate Madrassa education system, which has turned into the much-criticised Almajirai system in the Northern part of the country, with the western education system. Northern Bureau Chief, HASSAN IBRAHIM and MOSES ALAO, with additional reports from the Northern states, take a look at the Almajiri phenomenon and how the planned integration can bring succour the way of the hitherto-neglected Arewa child.
TheIR appearance, more than anything, brings bad feeling. The sight of many underage children, tattered, unkempt and utterly untended, often in very clumsy appearances, roaming the streets of most Northern state capitals and other smaller towns leave one to wonder why the pursuit of religious education could lead to the neglect of children who are God’s special gift to man. To many of the parents of such children, popularly referred to as Almajiri (child urchin), the attainment of Islamic education is far greater than the proper handling and care which little ones should receive.
So, an underage kid is normally sent far away from home in order to acquire Islamic knowledge.
Hence, such children, some just a little above four years, end up in the hands of a Malam, who has been deemed worthy to be understudied. Most of the time, the Malam, having seen his task as a service that will receive blessings from God, will receive the children and be made to cater for their basic needs even if he cannot provide for his immediate family.
He goes ahead to give them little or nothing in terms of feeding, put the children in unhygienic accommodations or wherever he can afford and provide little or nothing by way of clothing.
These children are left at the mercy of the society, literally left to scavenge for food remnants from neighbours and this is how they are to spend a greater part of their formative years, like forgotten refugees in their own country.Struggling, hustling and suffering, the noble trait of perseverance comes to Almajirai through days in the streets and nights in the chill, with stomachs filled with food from unsuspecting guests at restaurants or at worse left-over of day before which they manage to elicit from charitable neighbours.
Hence, when they hear of any means of making an extra money, they often jump at the offer but only to make the money and give to their masters, a typical case of ‘monkey dey work baboon dey chop am’
It is not uncommon to find such children engaged in other activities that could aptly be described as child labour, the reward having little or no positive effect in their lives, goes to the Malam for his selfish needs. Reports from some states even indicted bad eggs among the Malams who mischievously engage such innocent souls in fetish acts, with consequences that would impact negatively on the development and growth of such unfortunate children.
It is a fact that the religion of Islam encourages people to seek knowledge, but the religion does not in anyway promote begging or allowing children to be wandering on empty stomachs under the guise of searching for Qur’anic education. In Saudi Arabia, from where the religion of Islam originated and many other Islamic countries, children go to Madrassa (Islamic schools) in great number but the kind of Almajiri that constitute a source of worry here can never be found in these Islamic countries. The Secretary General of the apex Muslim body in Nigeria, Jama’atu Nasrul Islam (JNI), Sheik Khalid Aliyu, frowned on how the Alamjiri system of Islamic education has been bastardised and reiterated that Islam does not encourage begging.
He was however full of hope that with the interest of some Northern state governments and the Federal Government in integrating the Almajiri system into the conventional system of education, things could be much better for such children in the future.
These and other reasons could be why in recent times, Kaduna, Kano, Borno, Niger, Adamawa and other states in the region took the bull by the horn in order to give the Almajiri system a human face and rescue these children from further neglect and hardship.
In Kaduna State for instance, the state government had since completed the building of an ultra-modern school in Zaria for the Almajirai. The Executive Secretary of UBEC in Kaduna State, Dr. Bashir Balarabe said the state government established a boarding school for the Almajirai, which was very important because the Universal Basic Education is a programme that aims at ensuring that each school age children get access to basic education.
He said: “The number of the Almajirai is very large, about one quarter of the total population of our children in Kaduna State are Almajirai and are roaming the street. They may not be our children. They may be children from other states because Kaduna is a very central place as the capital of the North; you find many of them coming from other states to settle here. The name of the school is Bi-Lingual Boarding Primary School for Almajirai. So, if a large segment of the children we have in the society are not actually captured in the UBE, then it is not achieving the desired result. It has to be at least 90 per cent to achieve its aim.”
He further maintained that a large number of children are out of the reach of UBE programme, and that was why the government established the boarding primary school in other to capture the Almajirai where they will learn the Islamic or Qur’an recitation and also the western education because teachers would be provided.
”In addition to that, we have Qur’anic schools in various villages and towns and have isolated about 40 of them on a pilot basis and we are planning to send them teachers that will teach them western education and some important skills. So, they will be reading their Qur’an and benefitting from western education.
“By so doing, their normal learning is not affected because there will be an arrangement between the teachers and the local government education authority on when the western education should be taught and when the Qur’anic education should be taught. We hope that as time goes on, we will capture more of them. The initial figure for the take-off of the boarding primary school is 1500 and we are starting from primary one,” he said.
The issue of the Almajiri has remained one of the biggest worry for the governments of Northern states, as it has been associated with crisis and incessant religious uprising in the region. The Almajirai more often than not have been recruited by unscrupulous elements in the society to further their unjustifiable nefarious causes.
Alarming has been the rate of upheavals in which innocent children have been used as instruments in the hands of the wicked ones to foment untold cruelty on fellow Nigerians, a recent case in point being the Jos carnage.
According to Alhaji Saidu Maigari, “this integration policy is a welcome development, it will reduce the rate at which crises occur in the region because there will not be Almajirai to use for causing disturbances.”
Therefore, the Adamawa State government, even before the Federal Government’s policy of integrating the Almajiri/Madrassa system into the conventional system of education, had already taken the bull by the horn to attack what could be described as a scourge in the social life of the state.
In doing this, the state government through the State Universal Basic Education Board (ADSUBEB) began the integration of the Almajiri/Madrassa system of Islamic education system with its own nomadic education programme.
At one of such schools established in Mayo Belwa Local Government Area of the state, the Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, during a visit to Adamawa State to commission some projects of the state UBE, commended the Murtala Nyako’s administration for supporting the Federal Government’s policy of ridding the streets of the Almajirai by giving them education.
Also, in Niger State, government has begun moves to integrate the Almajiris into the formal school system. A committee, set up to advise the government on the possibility of merging the two systems, headed by the Emir of Suleja, Malam Mohammed Awal Ibrahim, recently submitted its findings to the government which had released a white paper and commenced the implementation of provisions of the white paper.
The Malam Awal Ibrahim’s committee discovered that there were 8210 Quranic schools in the state with a total enrolment of 586,521 students. These schools were also being manned by 15895 Malams. The report showed that most of the Almajirai and their teachers were not actually indigenes of Niger State as some of them were discovered to have come from as far as Maiduguri and Funtua in Katsina State.
The government started the integration of the Almajirai into the school system by first establishing a department in the Ministry for Basic Education, the department is headed by a Permanent Secretary, Alhaji Abdulmalik who has since assumed duties.
The department had gone round the state to sensitise religious leaders on the desirability or otherwise of the new programme. Abdulmalik said that the school would commence on a pilot basis with each of the 25 local government area having six schools. He said that a syllabus to be used had also been produced while teachers had been trained on how to handle the new programme which is expected to take-off in full force from the next academic year.
The story is not any different in Borno State, which has been the centre for Islamic education in the country. It has even been said that, in fact, Islam began in Nigeria with Borno State and for those who knew Borno State very well, the Kanuri Muslims are indeed peace-loving and do not allow their children to parade the streets or go from house to house begging for left-overs, instead their children attend the Tsangaya Schools in the morning and evening to seek for knowledge and they return home afterwards.
In Jigawa, few months after the inception of Governor Sule Lamido, the governor set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Emir of Gumel, Alhaji Ahmed Muhammed Sani to look at the possibility of integrating the Almajiri/Madrassa system of Islamic education into the modern education system.During the inauguration of the committee, the governor asked the members to work tirelessly to advise the government on how the policy will be more effective and sustainable in the state.
Alhaji Lamido said the plans by his administration became necessary considering the number of children involved and the fact that acquiring religious education has a wide acceptance among the parents among the rural dwellers. He said any government that has concern for its people and young children in particular, especially in the Northern part of this country, should find ways to ease and modify the system without further delay. The committee recommended construction of classrooms and the introduction of some modern education subjects in addition to the usual Qur’an and all Islamic knowledge in the schools.The committee also suggested the introduction of a monthly allowance to the teachers and provision of books and other teaching and learning materials to the Almajiri/Madrassa across the state. In that respect, the government had started a pilot scheme on the programme. Now, there are Almajirai Madrassa in all the 27 local government areas of the state, few weeks after the committee submitted its report and government subsequently has been increasing the number of the pilot schools in Jigawa State.
Kano State has for a very long time under the Shekarau administration, invested a lot towards integrating the Madrassa system into the Western system of education.
The popular system in the state is referred to as the Tsangaya system, Tsangaya in Hausa simply means an institution or school where the Qur’anic education is taught on a boarding basis to both children and adult, however, it is mainly for male students, but with the expansion in urbanization, another type of Tsangaya emerged, this is widely known as Makaranta Allo, where children and adults are taught the Quran on a day-schooling basis.According to Sunusi Iguda, ‘‘Tsangaya connotes an advanced institution of learning where students reaches the highest cadre in academic pursuits while Makarata Allo serves as a preparatory school where Muslim children acquire the basic knowledge of Quranic recitation.”The Senior Special Assistant on Media to the Kano State governor, Malam Sule Ya’u Sule said the government, since assumption of office, has not relented in its efforts to carry along all the teeming masses of the state.”
“In view of this, knowing fully the importance of education and the importance of Quranic education combined with the western education, the governor has continuously earmarked huge sum of money for the success of the project.” He stated.
He said many Quranic schools have been upgraded with necessary materials aimed at boosting the Quranic and western education in the state.Sule Ya’u noted that unlike previous governments, the incumbent governor has voted enough time to address the plight of Quranic education, in fact, the noble steps being taken to reposition the Tsangaya school earned him much respect compared with his predecessors. In order to equip them for normal challenges, Alhaji Sule Ya’u disclosed that the state government trained more than 4,000 Islamiyya Schools and headmasters while more than 25 Alarammomi (Islamic teachers) have benefited from various trips to Gambia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and other Islamic countries in order to be equipped and impart the best knowledge to the Tsangaya students. Sule Ya’u said that necessary infrastructural projects have been provided to over 300 Tsangaya schools.
The government also did a pilot feeding programme for Almajirai in many local governments in the state , through provision of cooked food so as to stop them from begging for food at every nook and cranny of the state. They were also provided with computer technology as a way of making them computer-literate while many of them also engaged in skill development as government provided them with sewing machines.
With these effort embarked upon by some of the Northern state governments towards changing the lives of these underprivileged children in the North, there is no doubt that very soon the kids would not only be educated in both Islamic and modern ways but would grow up to be respectable and productive members of the larger society.
Speaking on the integration of the two systems of education, the Borno State Deputy Governor, Alhaji Adamu Dibal dilated on the various benefits inherent in the integration, saying that it will help to produce sound and productive youths who will become future leaders.
However, when Sunday Tribune spoke with Malam Abdulsalam Sani, a cleric from the Ahmadeen Islamiya School, he said that unless measures were taken to checkmate the excesses of Almajirai being sent to the streets by their teachers or proprietors in search of food or for begging to earn a living, rather than staying in schools and learning, the integration policy which government is trying to achieve will not be feasible. According to him, provision of dressing and food allowances were being proposed for the pupils and students as well as teachers of the Tsangaya Schools, towards standardising the pattern of Tsangaya system of education but it always remain at a proposal level.
To the faithful of the other religion, Almajirai are threats and to some Muslims they are disgrace to the faith as some of them told Sunday Tribune that it is not written anywhere in the Holy Book that people should allow their children to go begging, therefore, according to them, sending out small children to go about begging can only be said to be an indoctrinated culture of some people, which found its way into Islam.
Saidu Hassan, an Almajri, told Sunday Tribune that he came to Maiduguri from Sokoto to acquire knowledge but that he has to resort to begging as he cannot afford to work and feed himself while studying. According to him, he is the last child of his parents and that, none of his siblings acquired any formal education and they are all married. “They are trying to take care of their families leaving me with no option than to cater for myself. They also underwent the Qu’ranic education in their own time and today they are at least living happily.”In an interview with most of the Almajirai on the streets of Maiduguri, majority of them told Sunday Tribune that begging should be discouraged by government because according to them even though many of them sometime get an average of N300 a day, most of the income practically does not go into their pockets thereby making life uneasy for them even after providing such amounts to their Malams.
According to Malam Usman Bukar, an Islamic teacher in Dala Allemderi ward of Maiduguri metropolis, begging is not encourage in Islam and should be discouraged in any society, but begging today is not only synonymous with the Almajirai. He noted that hundreds of graduates who could not secure jobs after graduation move along with their credentials begging in government offices under the pretense that they are looking for employment. He said the situation has become a burden which should be a source of worry to government authorities, corporate bodies and other stakeholders, especially given the facts that many who are not into gainful employment, risk vulnerability to social vices.
He said although it is the sole responsibility of the government to generate wealth by creating employment opportunities, there would be relief if public officers also come forward to provide their people with the working tools for self-employment where even the Almajirai could also be encouraged to go and learn one or two trades in order to be self-employed while they study since that is the sure way to providing employment today. He further said that Borno State is doing well in trying to integrate both the western and the traditional Qu’ranic education by introducing the Sangaya system but if it is going to work, serious hands must be encourage in educating these young leaders of tomorrow.
There have however been fears that even if the two systems are integrated, several factors may play up to jeopardise the possibility of the programme’s success. For instance, the Madrassa may be hijacked by extremists to continue to achieve their uncanny interests of using the Almajirai for untoward purposes like being mercenaries in periods of crisis.
Reacting to this fear, Dr. Balarabe said in order to prevent the pupils from being influenced with
radical ideologies; they had arranged seminars and workshops for the teachers across the state. “This issue have been raised and discussed and they have been warned to desist from any negative tendencies and they are abiding by that. We do not actually allow them to participate in the programme if we feel that their character and behaviors are questionable. We are using the primary school curriculum for them. I am sure that the brilliant ones will proceed to junior secondary schools as well as proceed up to the university because the teaching is going to be comprehensive. In any case, I want to say that it is a blessing for us to introduce the western education into the Almajirai system because the teacher that will be teaching them western education in those schools will be in a position to assess what is happening in that school and be able to report what is happening in that school and he will be in a position to give them what we call special guidance on what they should do and what they should not do,” he posited.
Also palpable is the fear that policies die with the coming of new governments, this has especially been the case with educational policies. More so, the commitment to policies has also been known to wane with time and the case will become that of business-as-usual.
It is therefore being insinuated that the idea of integrating the two systems of education may be a darling child of the current government, it may not live to witness the second month of a new administration or even suffer abandonment in the face of fresh challenges. The questions to ask therefore are how long will and can Almajirai be off the streets?, how long will the heavenly-conscious but earthly-neglected children in the North enjoy state and federal government attention?
How long before the return of plates-carrying, ragamuffin, uncared for, mendicant Arewa children, who through no fault of their have become hated and despised by the society that should take care of them.
Additional reports by Kola Oyelere, Kano; Dipo Laleye, Minna; Adamu Ahmadu, Dutse; Wale Akintunde, Adamawa and James Bwala, Maiduguri.