Jigawa Tsangaya schools still need FG’s assistance

The school began academic activities in 2012 and, presently, has 230 students.The school has good structures equipped with teaching and learning facilities and accommodation for both the pupils and teachers.A recent visit to the school by this reporter, however, revealed that three years after, the school has not yet been connected to the national grid […]

The school began academic activities in 2012 and, presently, has 230 students.
The school has good structures equipped with teaching and learning facilities and accommodation for both the pupils and teachers.
A recent visit to the school by this reporter, however, revealed that three years after, the school has not yet been connected to the national grid for electricity supply. Rather, the school relies on generating set for electricity.
There is also no provision of any sport facility in the school. But the headmaster of the school, Malam Sani Falalu Isa, said the students are allowed to play football within the school’s compound.
On the electricity supply, he explained that the school has been without electricity for three weeks (as at the time this reporter visited the school), courtesy of breakdown of the generating set owned by the school.
Isa said that the local government is responsible for fuelling and servicing of the generator, adding that the generator functions from 7pm to 12 midnight.
Daily Trust gathered that the pupils begin their daily lessons with tsangaya programmes which are mainly Qur’anic education from 7:30am to 9:30am when they go for their breakfast. They resume by 10:15am and continue their western education lessons till 2 pm when they close for the day.
The tsangaya resumes around 4pm. They go for dinner and resume tsangaya lesson again from 9pm to11pm for the day.
Daily Trust gathered that the kids are fed diet of rice, beans, bread and tea, pap and beans cake and tuwo, depending on the time table.
Isa told Daily Trust that the system has gone a long way in assisting the society and kids by eliminate the menace of begging and hunger among almajirai.
He said the programme is designed in such a way that each student will spend a maximum of nine years in school within which he will complete Qur’anic memorisation and secondary education.
“Pupils will spend three years in primary school, three years in junior secondary school and three years in senior secondary. But they have to combine this with Qur’anic education,” he said.
The headmaster appealed to federal government to complement the state by giving teachers’ allowance to motivate them, adding that they equally need a school bus to move pupils around because the one given to them by the state has broken down.
Chairman, Jigawa State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Alhaji Sani Abdullahi, whose board is in charge of the schools, said the concept of the tsangaya system was meant to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria.
“It is important to know the background within which the concept of tsangaya came into being. Millions of children are out of school in Nigeria, the bulk of which come from the North-west. The idea is to integrate these children into a system where they get both western and Islamic education at the same time.
“We have six of such schools now in Jigawa. We are grateful for the initiative but the federal government should assist the state financially to run these schools. The federal government only provided the building and facilities.  The state government is responsible for recruitment of teachers and their salaries. We provide the feeding and overhead cost.”
He said each of the school has six teachers employed by the state government and placed on grade level-06 by state government, adding that they have three Qur’anic teachers (alarammas).
Abdullahi advised the federal government to assist in financing the tsangaya schools and build more schools if the objective is to close the education gap in Nigeria.
One of the students, Ibrahim Salihu, from Miga Local Government read a portion from the Qur’an (Suratul Kahaf).
The subjects they do in the school include mathematics, English, basic science, social studies, Arabic, Hausa and Islamic religious knowledge.