INTEGRATED ALMAJIRI EDUCATION: THE CONSPIRACY OF BENEFICIARY STAKEHODERS TO SHUN THE PROGRAMME

Abstract

The Integrated Almajiri Education System was introduced to amalgamate the Qur’anic or Islamic with Basic Education curricula. It was to avail the almajiri child with dual knowledge in moral/spiritual and formal/lifelong skills to entice and take them off the streets. Ironically, the gesture was shunned by the beneficiary stakeholders (the parents, the Mallams and naïve almajiris). Consequently, millions of them are still roaming the streets in the North especially North East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria. The paper tried to find out why should such a good gesture be shunned by the beneficiary stakeholders who were expected to have enthusiastically grabbed the opportunity by enrolling their children en-mass into the model schools established for them. This paper employed a descriptive survey research design as a guide and then collected primary and secondary data using a structured questionnaire. Then the data was qualitatively analysed using simple percentages. The results revealed that poor policy formulation approach and lack of implementation strategy made the programme difficult to implement. Inadequate publicity and sensitization made the beneficiary stakeholders ignorant and suspicious of government intention. Hence, they rather perceived the programme as a ploy to rob them of the benefits of relief from childcare burden and almajiri exploitation that they were deriving from the anomaly. Lack of preliminary and feasibility studies and poor funding created inadequacies in term of quality and quantity of staff, office and classroom equipment, school plants and infrastructure.