Tales of Rummawa community school

In spite of the odds confronting Rummawa community in terms of basic social amenities, Hassana Hamisu, a ten-year-old primary 3 pupil, nurtures the dream to be the first female medical doctor from the community. Hassana started her educational career at a school put in place by the Rummawa community with a view to saving hundreds […]

In spite of the odds confronting Rummawa community in terms of basic social amenities, Hassana Hamisu, a ten-year-old primary 3 pupil, nurtures the dream to be the first female medical doctor from the community.

Hassana started her educational career at a school put in place by the Rummawa community with a view to saving hundreds of children in the area from trekking miles to seek western education.

Rummawa is a small community in Gezawa local government that has been struggling to get a befitting primary school in the area for their children.

However, last year, the community was able to established a community school in the area and continued to run it with the little contributions by members of the community.

One year after establishing the school, the young promising children are still sitting in a make-shift structure to learn and prepare for their future leadership roles.

When Chronicle visited the school yesterday, it observed that over 100 pupils struggle for space to sit for learning activities in each of the available classrooms made from a corrugated roofing sheet.

A visit to the school by our reporters late last year, indicated that because of the community’s need for education, they erected thatched classrooms for their children.

Unfortunately, the thatched classes collapsed early this year which resulted in pupils learning under scorching sun for hours.

Further observation, revealed that with exception of headmaster and his assistant, who are on government pay roll, the rest of the teachers are teaching voluntarily.

Chronicle also gathered that even the make-shift sheds that are being used as classrooms are constructed through the efforts of the community. Despite its condition, the school has a population of 540 pupils, according to the Headmaster, Malam Hambali Muhammad.

Muhammad told our reporters that pupils are being enrolled into the school on daily basis, a situation that forced the school authority to stop admission of new intake in order to avoid over-stretching the available temporary classrooms.

He said, “In our meeting today, we have decided to stop admitting pupils for our Early Education Child Care (EECC) class because they are more than 200 at the moment and we cannot take more,” he said.

He appealed to the Kano state Governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, to extend his gesture of mercy to the children of the area as he had been doing to other places in the state.

He also appealed to Gezawa local government and other well meaning individuals to come to the aid of the school by providing essential teaching and learning materials so as to guarantee a brighter future for the children and the community by extension.

Malam Muhammad expressed his appreciation to the people of the community for their immense support and cooperation, especially the unpaid teachers that give their time to ensure the success of the school.

Also speaking with our reporters, one of volunteer teachers, Malam Sulaiman Umar, said the school started with thatched structures before they were replaced with a make-shift shades partitioned with roofing sheets after the thatch was blown off by windstorm.

He said: “When we started this school we made use of kernel and sticks to build classes where children could sit and learn. After doing that, with the help of God and media publicity, chairman of Gezawa Local Government Area visited us and asked some questions regarding how we started everything and we gave him all the details, and he then promised that he would purchase a land and also build a school for us.

“It was after that that we got a land, negotiated its price and reported same to the local government through the chairman.

The local council agreed to buy that particular land after a process because it has to go through the appropriate channels and after getting all the approvals, they will pay for the land and start building. Later, the local government sent two teachers from the local education authority; a headmaster and his assistant to this school. So these are the improvements we have since the commencement of the school.”

Malam Umar said sending two teachers from the LEA had showed that the school was recognised by the state government.

He said, “After the make-shift building collapsed, we were in a dilemma, we had no choice than to seek for the assistance of the local government, we told the chairman about the collapse. He said he would contact HOD Works for any available material that could be used to start building temporary classes for the school.

“We spent some time trying to reach the HOD but we couldn’t find him, then we decided to stop wasting time and made personal contributions to repair the school. Fortunately, we found a gentleman who has the materials we needed, he built a farmhouse for his personal use and was ready to tear down the building and give us the materials on a loan at a discounted price as his contribution towards helping these children.

“We later got in touch with some representatives of the chairman of the local government, who commended us for our efforts and promised us their contributions after salary is paid so that we can settle our debt, but since then, we couldn’t hear from them.”

He added that apart from the local government, there was an NGO that took interest in the situation, and offered to help by requesting an estimate of the school project cost which was documented and submitted to them, but the NGO was also yet to respond.