Foundation introduces skills programme to Quranic schools
By Hassana Yakubu
March 04, 2022
The Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, Abubakar Umar says the foundation would soon introduce literacy and skills acquisition programme to Quranic (Tsangaya) schools.
Foundations’s Director-General Abubakar Umar disclosed this on Wednesday at one day Focus Group Discussion with Quarnic (Tsangaya) Teachers on the “Challenges of Almajiri System of Education in Northern Nigeria jointly organised with MacArthur Foundation in Kaduna.
He said the objective of the programme is to clear-off the teaming abundant children on the streets as Almajiris.
According to him, recent research by various organisations revealed that 75 per cent of the out of school children are from Northern Nigeria.
“Already the figure is not encouraging, we have about 13.5 million out of school children with about 10 million are here in the north and 70 percent are Almajiris” DG lamented.
He said the Foundation would select one Tsangaya School from each of the twenty three local government area of Kaduna state as pilot project.
“We’ll teach them western education and provide skills acquisitions training to cut-up the number of hours they spend outside’’.
Umar said the roaming about of Almajiris on the streets has exposed them to various criminal activities including kidnapping, drug addiction and thuggery.
Speaking , chairman, Association of Qur’ani Memorisers in Traditional Islamic Schools, Suleiman Maizube, said the introduction of the western education and skill acquisition training would add value to the system.
He said that the Association has set up a committee to sensitised the Quranic schools teachers( Tsangaya ) and call on government and non-governmental organisations to support the programme.
Earlier, the initiator of Support for Almajiri Initiative (SAI), Malam Lawal Ibrahim Kankia, said the Tsangaya School System was still relevant within context of Islamic education.(NAN)