List of Tsangaya (Almajiri) Model Schools built under Jonathan across Nigeria | EduCeleb
Abdussomod Amoo
1st November 2018
From December 2009, the Nigerian Federal Government under President Goodluck Jonathan began the building of Model Tsangaya/Almajiri schools across Nigeria as an integral part of the Almajiri Education Programme. This was with a view to helping mainstream the Almajiri system in basic education. In this post, EduCeleb.com presents you the list of the schools constructed by the government while giving a background to their existence too.
“Almajiri” is a Hausa word derived from the Arabic word “Almuhajirun”, meaning migrants. In Northern Nigeria, it refers to persons who travel far from home in search of Islamic knowledge. Tsangaya, on the other hand, refers to “open learning centre” from Hausa. Both words are alternatively used today in various circles to mean the latter.
The Almajiri are predominantly found in Northern Nigeria with a considerable population in the Southwest of the country too. Almajiri schools are also called Makarantun Allo (slate school), Tsangaya (Learning centre) and Ile-kewu (Arabic school in Yoruba) depending on the context of the usage. They are also in forms of Islamiyyah and Tahfeez (Qur’anic memorisation) schools today.
The Tsangaya/Almajiri system of education is as old as Islam in Nigeria dating back to over a millennium ago, according scholars. Prominent education professor, Babatunde Fafunwa even wrote in his book, “History of Education in Nigeria” that when the British colonialists arrived in the country, they met over 25,000 Islamic schools in Northern Nigeria.
Back then, Arabic language and literacy, which is rendered with the Ajami script facilitated literacy in many of Africa’s languages such as Hausa, Swahili, and Kanuri. Relics of the Ajami script is found on some of Nigeria’s higher denominations till today. Students could thus read and write using that script before the introduction on Western education.
In the precolonial times, the Almajiri and their teachers (called Mallams) benefitted from both governmental and communal support as the teaching and learning took place. While the Emirs would give grants to Tsangaya schools, communities would welcome and host the Almajiri from time to time.
But this would later change with the British invasion of Northern Nigeria. The Tsangaya schools stopped enjoying government support just as students in them were not regarded as educated. The system was totally downgraded as graduates from it could not use their qualifications to seek government jobs even as skill acquisition was an integral part of the Tsangaya schooling system. Without government support, the students turned to begging and doing menial jobs to survive.
Several efforts had gone on in the post-colonial era towards according the Almajiri some sort of regard especially by communities and state governments. Among such were the establishment of the Northern Board of Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS) in the sixties, the establishment of Islamiyyah schools where Islamic and Qur’anic knowledge were taught from the eighties to the recognition, and the equalization of certificates earned through Tsangaya school system with that of university graduates.
Even after all these, products of the traditional Tsangaya schools did not get recognized as educated in their own rights at the national level. This is evident in the categorization of students produced through the system as “illiterates” continues today.
The Federal government regards the over 9 million Almajiris in Nigeria as out-of-school-children since many of them had acquired little or no Western education up to completing primary school education. Thus, it put up measures to ensure that products of the system were given Western education. This led to the construction of Tsangaya/Almajiri Model schools in various parts of the country as part of attaining the purpose of Universal Basic Education.
The Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 is the legal framework for basic education in Nigeria. This law, which sought to make basic education free and compulsory for Nigerians, defines basic education as the six years of primary school and three years of junior secondary school education. States and local governments were to be the ones in control of basic education while the federal government provide intervention in terms of counterpart grants and funding.
Through the Act, agencies were also established to play the roles on behalf of the governments. The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is the federal agency providing the intervention while each of the states and local governments have the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) respectively.
After the construction of the schools through UBEC, the Federal Government handed them over to their host states through the SUBEBs. A list of the schools EduCeleb.com got from UBEC shows that there are 157 Almajiri Model Schools altogether with most concentrated mainly in the Northeast and the Northwest of the country. The government had three models of its construction of the schools, which are discussed below.
The Federal Government considered three models of its construction and equipment of the Almajiri schools, namely Model I, Model II and Model III. Each model of the Almajiri Education Programme has varying degree of support and interventions. They are the Model I, Model II and Model III.
Model I schools involve the integration of traditional Qur’anic school within its original location. There are 101 Model I schools in the country. Statutory facilities provided are a block of two classrooms and furniture, an administrative block including Office, Store and Toilets, and a hostel block with pupils’ lockers. Others are a recitation hall with store and furniture/mats, VIP Toilets, a borehole with overhead-tank, a gate house, and external works and fencing.
Model II schools are quite larger than Model I schools and were meant to accommodate more pupils. The 18 Model II schools spread across Nigeria were built to serve a group of Qur’anic schools within their respective states. In addition to them, there are 36 others funded through the (Tertiary) Education Trust Fund. Statutory facilities in such schools are two blocks of 6 classrooms, an admin block including 5 offices, a library, toilets, a computer room, 2 laboratories and 2 workshops.
Others are a staff quarters to accommodate up to 10 members of staff, a hostel block, toilets and laundry, a recitation hall, one Mallam’s residence, a hand-pump borehole, and a motorised borehole with overhead tank. Others a VIP toilet, kitchen and dining, external works and fencing and a gate house.
Model III schools are pre-existing Islamiyyah and Ma’ahad schools supported in terms of rehabilitation and provision of additional infrastructure. Documents from the UBEC and the Federal Ministry of Education did not explicitly state details of such supports unlike they did for the two other models. One of the documents merely gave the number of Model III schools supported by the FG as 138. These are not included in the list below.
Both Model I and Model II schools were also provided with Beds and Beddings with 50 in each Model I school and 100 each in each Model II school. Other infrastructure such as classroom pupils’ furniture, teachers’ furniture were also provided in each of the school.
As earlier stated, this list includes only the Tsangaya/Almajiri Model Schools built by, or supported with additional buildings by the Federal Government. There are others built by state governments, communities and individuals not stated here. You may come across those ones on your own as you transverse Nigeria. We must emphasise that not all the listed ones below were newly built by the government but there were definitely structures and facilities added to the available ones in such cases.