Minister: FG will redefine out-of-school children to exclude Almajiri — they have education

Suwaba Saidu, minister of state for education, says Almajiri children are not meant to be regarded as out-of-school.

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

A male child seeking Islamic knowledge is called Almajiri, the female is Almajira, and the plural is Almajirai.

The Almajiri system encourages guardians to cede parental responsibilities to Islamic schools.

However, the lack of federal and state monitoring has forced many of these children into street begging.

In 2024, the federal government unveiled a roadmap for reforms in the education sector to be implemented before 2027.

The policy document seeks to reduce Nigeria’s out-of-school children by 25 percent annually, reabsorbing 15 million by 2027.

One of the objectives of the policy is to establish learning centres for accelerated basic education across the states to absorb 500,000 overage out-of-school children every year with a specialised curriculum that teachers would be trained to deploy.

It also plans to operationalise an open school scheme to train 500,000 over-age, out-of-school children in basic skills and entrepreneurship education annually.

The plan also seeks to integrate Almajiri schools into the formal basic education system while incorporating foundational literacy and numeracy lessons into the curriculum of these non-formal settings.

In response, some states have constituted committees to revitalise the Islamic education system towards reabsorbing their quota of out-of-school children.

Saidu, during an Arise TV news show, said the Almajiri already have a system of education.

The minister said it only needs to embrace foundational literacy and numeracy components, skills acquisition, and digital lessons.

Saidu said the federal government plans to redefine “out-of-school children” to exclude the Almajiri after incorporating their associated Islamic schools into Nigeria’s formal basic education framework.

“One of the key issues we’re trying to solve is out-of-school children. We have reforms that are targeted at re-enrolling these children. Take for instance the Almajiri Commission. It has programmes. We have about 15 million out-of-school children,” Saidu said.

“There are different data sources and it all depends on the one you are looking at. The 15 million includes Almajiri, but we are all aware that the Almajiri have a system of education. They have their curriculum and teachers.

“We want to go back and redefine what we mean by out-of-school children because Almajiri is not part of that.

“To ensure that Almajri fits into the formal system, let’s go back and see how to provide them with foundational learning, basic numeracy, basic literacy, some aspects of digital training, and skills acquisition.”

One in every three Nigerian children is estimated to be out of school, including 10.2 million at the primary level and 8.1 million at the junior secondary level according to UNICEF data.

Recent data from UNESCO puts Nigeria’s out-of-school children rate at 28 million, 19.5 million in rural and 8.5 million in urban areas.

Faced with such grim statistics, many states in Nigeria have been scrambling to address their quota of out-of-school children.

In 2023, Nigeria created an Almajiri commission under the education ministry to absorb roaming children into conventional schools.