The Nigerian federal government has proposed spending N793 million on integrating Almajiri, Qur’anic and non-formal schools in nine states into formal education in four years.
The new pilot project is expected to take the nation’s over 10.1 million out-of-school children off the streets to acquire education and skills.
This is stated in the Short and Medium Term Blueprint/Work Plan on the implementation of Education for Change: A Ministerial Strategic Plan (MSP) document obtained by EduCeleb.com.
The government noted that the existing Almajiri/Tsangaya schools lack implementation of vocational skills programmes for students.
Beneficiary states include eight of them in the north and only Oyo State in the south.
The other states are Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Niger, Adamawa, Bauchi, Yobe and Jigawa.
The project will be implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education through the Universal Basic Education Commission in collaboration with State Ministries of Education, State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) and the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies.
In 2019, the government earmarked N416 million for the project. For 2020, it is N329.3 million. Also, N36 million in 2021 and N11.7 million in 2022 make the sum.
The government planned ensuring that by 2021, all Almajiri children would be fully integrated into the formal school system.
The government acknowledged the abandonment of most of the 157 Almajiri/Tsangaya model schools built by the education ministry and handed over to states as previously reported by EduCeleb.com.
The government blamed this on lack of sensitisation of religious community leaders and other stakeholders on the programme.
To avoid a repeat, the government said that it would hold series of meetings in four geo-political zones with the highest concentration of Almajiri children while a campaign on the new project would be held in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, to get a buy-in for the new project.
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