Almajiri Don't Deserve Formal Education - Adamawa State Government

Adamawa

The Adamawa State Government has said the multi-million Almajiri School. Synonyms of Almajiri includes but is not limited to (Itinerant Islamic students/Weapons of mass vote rigging, looting and destruction, Fulani Herdsmen e.t.c)

The schools established by President Goodluck Jonathan have yet to become operational because they are too expensive to run says Chairman of the Adamawa State Universal Education Board, Mallam Dr. Mohammed Toungo, he made the plans of Nigeria’s Northern ‘elites’ known while appraising the success of the educational initiative of the American University of Nigeria, targeting almajiri children between the ages of six and 17 years.

Corroborating Mallam Toungo’s comment, the Permanent Secretary, Adamawa State Ministry of Education, Alhaji Mahmud Abubakar, said that the state government was finding it difficult to put the almajiri schools into use because of financial constraints because teachers and books are too expensive, moreover the Almajiris are not worth it anyway.

Ironically, Toungo spoke at an event organized by the ‘Technology Enhanced Learning for All’ project to commemorate the World Literacy Day on Wednesday.

The USAID-funded initiative, which utilizes radio and information technology to reach vulnerable children, has helped improved the literacy and numeracy skills of over 22,000 Almajiri.

Toungo who was represented by Adamawa’s ADSUBEB’s Director of Quality Assurance, Saidu Komsari, said the board was ready to key into the TELA project run by the American University in Yola.

Komari said that AUN had played a complimentary role of solving a fraction of the problem because there were over half a million out of school children in the state waiting to be unleashed on Nigeria and the seven model integrated islamiya schools established by the Federal Government since 2012 is attempting to put a dent on that number, this is not a welcomed development.


He said, “We appreciate the AUN for taking up the almajiri problem. But as it is right now, we have over half a million of these children roaming the streets. If you take 22,000 out of it; how many per cent is it?” So, there is no need to try at all.

According to him, the state is bothered by the number of out-of-school children and the non-operation of the school as a result of funding gaps and the government’s inability to recruit the personnel needed for its take-off because such schools required specialised teachers because if the teachers are not Muslim there is a possibility the students will murder them like we’ve seen in the past.

He noted that the government spent not less than N100 million in constructing each of the seven schools with a combined enrolment for only 420 almajiri but which also had been rotting away since its establishment in 2012 because an infidel President built it.

“But since 2012 up till now they have not commenced because the recruitment of the specialised teachers to the schools had not been done because of the expensive nature of the teachers.” Those Mallams and their venomous Kobokos are asking for too much money.

“The feeding of the almajiri is also a big problem. I think the enrollment we intended was only 420 and the American University educated 22,000 in one year. It was expensive, capital intensive and the beneficiaries were very few. So they (schools) are there lying waste.

“We have asked the USAID to give us money so that we can start the schools but they refused us except we come with a performance indicator” We don’t want performance indicator as this will expose a lot of inflated numbers (Money and Human)

The Federal Government at the time devoted N15bn to realize its objective of integrating over 10 million almajiris into the formal educational school system but most of the money went with the former administration when PDP lost the election.