Education minister asks FG to increase funding for Almajiri schools

Tunji Alausa, the minister of education, has asked the federal government to increasingly finance the Almajiri system of education to reduce the rate of out-of-school children in Nigeria.

The Almajiri refers to a system of Islamic education predominantly practised in northern Nigeria.

The male gender seeking Islamic knowledge is called Almajiri, the female gender is Almajira, and the plural is Almajirai.

The system encourages guardians to cede parental responsibilities to the Islamic school.

Alausa spoke on Thursday when the senate committee on tertiary institutions and TETFund, led by its chairman Muntari Dandutse, visited the education ministry for an oversight function.

The minister called for more funds to be allocated to the Almajiri system of education to tackle the out-of-school children crisis in the country.

Alausa, who took to office after a major shakeup that reassigned ministerial portfolios, decried the high rate of out-of-school children in Nigeria.

He said allocating more funds for the Almajiri system could contribute to addressing the crisis.

“We have up to 20 million out-of-school children. I met with the executive secretary of the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-school Children who said that the 20 million was even under-quoted,” he said.

“It is about 40 million to 50 million. This is a danger that can consume everybody. We have to make these schools work.”

Alausa said there is a lot of infrastructural decay in Nigerian public schools.

“Former President Goodluck Jonathan built about 137 Almajiri schools during his tenure. But today, it is sad that only a few of these schools are operational,” he said.

The minister called for more funding to achieve the desired goal of ensuring that out-of-school children were taken off the streets.

He further said that the ministry would find a way of keeping children in school through a sustainable feeding scheme.

“We will design the nutrition. We will ensure that the children get good nutrition which will translate into better brain development and enable us to develop human capital,” he said.

The UN says one in three Nigerian children is out of school, 10.2 million at primary school level and 8.1 million at junior secondary level.

It adds that insufficient domestic finance for primary education caused a shortfall of 378,000 classrooms and about 278,000 teachers.