Visiting Zaria’s boarding school for toddlers

Professor Ango Abdullahi International School, Zaria, was named after the former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU). He is currently the spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF). The school has produced hundreds of children that can memorise the Holy Qur’an, with one pupil recently winning an international Qur’anic memorisation and recitation competition […]

Professor Ango Abdullahi International School, Zaria, was named after the former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU). He is currently the spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF). The school has produced hundreds of children that can memorise the Holy Qur’an, with one pupil recently winning an international Qur’anic memorisation and recitation competition that took place in Saudi Arabia.
The proprietor of the school, Dr. Aliyu Shamsuddeen, a pharmacist, said within a span of seven years of its existence, the school has achieved many feats. “The memorisation of the Holy Qur’an is one of the major objectives of founding this school. However, we pay attention to other aspects of Islamic jurisprudence and Western education. Our ultimate goal is to produce students who are well-versed in both Islamic and Western education. We are achieving this goal,” he said.
 “What motivated me to start this experiment is what is happening in other parts of the world. It is possible to have a boy of 20 or 25 with PhD in Europe or America, while people of 50 or even 60 in Nigeria are battling to have one. In fact, some people spend about 20 years in Nigeria doing PhD because of our type of system. In the same vein, we’ve seen boys of six or seven who can memorise the Holy Qur’an in Arab countries. It is based on this that I told myself that we can do it. This is why we said our students must be toddlers, largely because kindergarteners have fresh brains that can accommodate much,” Dr. Shamsuddeen said.
With that idea, Dr. Shamsuddeen formed King Muhammad Sunusi International Academy in Kano, before he moved to Zaria to found Professor Ango Abdullahi International School and Mallawa Academy. When a boy or girl of one year or year and a half is admitted in the school, he or she is provided with an environment where the Holy Qur’an is recited day and night.
He said: “This is how we do it. If a child is born in a Hausa family, for example, nobody would sit him down to be teaching him/her the Hausa language. By the fact that that child grows in an environment where Hausa is the common language, he would grow up to speak it fluently without any teacher. We adopted this psychology and make the school environment full of Qur’anic recitation. We play Qur’anic cassette for these children day and night to the extent that even when they are in the bathroom, they would be hearing the Qur’an. We have audio and video facilities everywhere.”
Apart from playing the audio materials of the Qur’an, the school has other activities in its curriculum. “These children are taught by competent teachers. We also have a school programme that allows a child to retire to bed as early as 7.30pm and we wake up by 2am for Qur’anic memorisation. Again, after 6am, these children would go back to bed until 7.30am when they would take their bath and breakfast before moving to class. These are some of the steps we follow in ensuring that we produce children that memorise the Holy Qur’an at three, four or a little above that,” Dr. Shamsuddeen said.
Other facilities that help the school’s curriculum are provision of maids, who are responsible for the preparation of students’ food, nursing them and taking care of them.
“We are not sound only on Qur’anic memorisation, but in all aspects of Western education. We thank Allah for this blessing,” Dr. Shamsuddeen said.
Some of the parents of the students interviewed by Daily Trust described the school as a blessing to not only Zaria, Kaduna and Nigeria, but the whole world.
“Following the exploits of the school in the international Qur’anic recitation competition in Saudi Arabia, some students from the Kingdom are now about to be enrolled in the school. This is really encouraging and commendable to have a school like this in Zaria with international recognition,” Musa Salihi, one of the parents said.
Neighbours of the school told Daily Trust that it also impacts on their lives by providing them with job opportunities and other economic activities.