One of the Conveners of the National Almajirci Summit, Dr. Usman Bugaje has said that the North has a moral responsibility to provide for children quality education for a brighter society.
Speaking at an Advocacy and Parental Reorientation Cohot Workshop in Kaduna, over the weekend, he said the summit is not concerned about who does what, but how can critical stakeholders come together to resolve the issue which he said, has been on the raider without progress.
According to him, “The National Almajirci Summit which is slated to hold early 2021will bring on members of the National Assembly (NASS), the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Nigerian and the Northern Governor’s Forum and all other stakeholders so that we can put clearly on the table Al that is there to be done with the hope that the summit will result to a line of actions that every institution, every group and every partner is going to do so that we can have an annual summit where we will monitor, evaluate and make improvements.
“The workshops we are holding for five cohots on Advocacy, curriculum, legislation and finding comprising experts and various stakeholders are focusing on aspects of this very complex phenomenon and by the time these workshops are completed, and reports are organised, they will be presented at the summit.”
He added, “The idea of the summit was bourn out of our research finding which showed that even though people have been doing a lot on the issue of Almajirci in the last 25years but they have not built on what others have done and they have left out some critical stakeholders.”
He said, “What we have done in the last six month, is to do a thorough research looking at conferences that have been done as well as ensuring every stakeholder is involved because until and unless everyone is brought on board, there will be no synergy and coordination.”
Chairman of the Advocacy and Parental Reorientation Cohot, Dr. Bala Muhammad said the colonial masters relegated Qu’ranic education when they brought western education.
According to him, “Before the coming of the colonial masters, Qur’anic education was referred to as basic education in Northern Nigeria, but after their coming, they relegated Qur’anic education and made western education more important.
“The system suffered, the funding and support it used to receive was stopped and so they children moved from being Almajir (seekers of Qur’anic knowlegde) to the Almajir we see on the street today begging for for from the society because the malam’s cannot feed them.”
He noted that the Area Research and Development Project (ARDP) and the AAFAC Foundation decided to convey the summit to address the issue.
Credit: Leadership