THE CAUSE OF PERPETUAL ATTRACTION OF ALMAJIRI PARENTS TO THE ACHAIC QUR’ANIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN NORTH-EASTERN NIGERIA AND ENVIRONS

Abstract

The cause of the Almajiri parents' perpetual attraction to the archaic Qur’anic school system was examined. The purpose was to find out why the Integrated Almajiri Education System, which was introduced to amalgamate the Qur’anic with Basic Education curricula, was shunned by the beneficiary stakeholders. Consequently, millions of them are still roaming the streets in the North, especially the North-East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria. This paper employed a historical qualitative research design as a guide and then collected secondary data from libraries and online. Then qualitatively analysed data using content analysis methods. The findings revealed that a poor policy formulation approach and a lack of implementation strategy made the programme difficult to implement. Inadequate publicity and sensitization made the beneficiary stakeholders ignorant and suspicious of the government's intention. Hence, they 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 terms of quality and quantity of staff, office, and classroom equipment, school plants, and infrastructure. It was then recommended that implementation of the Integrated Almajiri Education System should be done through a gradual process from parental empowerment, temporary relief of parents from childcare burden to employment and certification of the mallams, before enacting laws to enforce the programme.