World Bank’s grassroots education programme suffers setback in Niger
NEWS DIGEST – In Niger State, Nigeria, dilemmas still looms as the focal aim of World Bank’s education programme, ‘Better Education Service Delivery for All’ (BESDA) suffers mirage over what the Almajirai (plural of Almajiri) described as ‘misplaced priority’.
Some of the children grumbled over the preferred teaching lingual, conceding teaching them in English would better be appreciated than in Hausa.
It could be recalled that the World Bank on June 20, 2017, launched the BESDA to pacify the hiking numbers of out-of-school children. An intervention worth $611 million, where Niger’s proportion is totalled at $6 million.
Irked by the almajirai vulnerability in the society, Niger State government had sometimes in January this year, announced that 7,000 out of 500,000 almajirai have been captured for the BESDA programme. These almajirai would be provided with school uniforms, educated twice in a week for a duration of two hours and at the same time be fed during the scheduled periods of the teachings.
News Digest in this report x-rayed the programme efficacy to the helpless children, and their response steeped the primary objective of the programme as provided on the official website of the World Bank.
Studying out of classrooms
First thing BESDA seeks to combat is getting out-of-school children to the classrooms where the learning atmosphere is conducive. For these children, that’s far from reality as they revealed the teachings are done in their various almajirai centres, not in facilitative classrooms.
Opposed to this, the World Bank on its website, summarises the project’s objective as follows “to increase equitable access for out-of-school children and improve literacy in focus states, and strengthen accountability for results, in basic education in Nigeria.”
The misplaced priority: ‘we prefer to be taught in English, not Hausa’
“Duk wanna litafin ba’e da amfani kaman wanda a ka rubuta da Turenci”, says Musa Aliyu, an almajiri child from Lauhil-l-Qura’ani, Brighter, Minna. His preference for formal education Is top-notched, compared to the non-convetional.
Aliyu who looks 12 in age, emphasised his sophistry in speaking Hausa, querying the authority’s decision that chose Hausa over the universal language. Still, he appreciates the fact that he can now write in Hausa.
Just like Aliyu, Yahyah Shamsudeen also of the same learning centre, backs English as teaching language against Hausa. “We’ve complained to the facilitators, but they told us to calmly finish this phase before granting our request”, remarks Shamsudeen.
Responses from the various almajiri children cheered little benefits the Hausa teaching had impacted on them. Ability to write and accomplishments relished around learning of Hausa alphabets, vowels among others were seemingly the added value of the teachings to their lives.
Nonetheless, to make the society a living place for them, teaching these in English appeared to be their satisfaction.
NSUBEB justifies use of Hausa, out-of-classrooms teaching
In an interview with NewsDigest, Niger State Universal Basic Education Board (NSUBEB), through its Education Managing Information System Officer, Abdulkadeer Ibrahim explained reasons for adopting Hausa in facilitating the program.
He notes that BESDA entails three results area namely; Increasing children access to school, Intensive literary programme, and System strengthening and accountability.
The first of these three was targeted at the almajirai, he submits.
Read Also:
Ibrahim, rationalising the use of Hausa referenced to National Policy on Education (NPE) that mandates teachers to teach children in their mother language. This enables them to easily assimilate what they had been taught.
He adds “when BESDA came to Niger, we decided to adopt Reading And Numeracy Activity (RANA)_ a UNICEF introduced program sectionalised into RANA Aske and RANA light.
“That aspect of RANA Aske was designed for informal schools, while the other one was designed for conventional schools.”
Further citing NPE provisions, he explained that the books are written in Hausa and teachers were also trained to facilitate the teachings in Hausa, so that the children understand better.
He insisted the needed literacy and numeracy would be better served to the children using their indigenous language.
To address the children’s demand, he said complaints can be channeled to the desk officers and BESDA Implementation Committee will formulate how to effect the new decisions.
On adoption of out-of-classroom teachings, the board said there was no plan for classroom construction from the beginning of the program. The forsessen parochial attitudes of the Alaramas (almajirai teachers) was presumed to be the reason for classroom deficiency.
“If we were to establish the classrooms at this stage, the programme may not be successful. The owners of these almajiri centres would misconstrue the goal and that can impede the entire literacy initiative”, Ibrahim concludes.
Tragedy of being an almajiri
It was in a scorching 12 noon sun, on a 6-Inch width and about 10-Inch length corridor, where two weary lads were helplessly lying on a wornout small-sized mat In-between an halfway shade and the bone-piercing sunlight; struggling to balance their sleeping positions_ a careless body-turn could cause one at the edge to be fatally hosted by the stony floor.
The situation depicts the tragic living status of Almajiri children on the suburb street of Hausawa, Mokwa local council of Niger State.
Portending the apparent imminent danger of their sleeping posture, this reporter woke the boy at the edge advising him to find a better place.
As he struggles to safely stand up, the other boy wakes up too. They both stretched their body and yawned_ their eyes reddish and signaling hunger.
Among them was a 14-year-old Yussuf, who briskly dug his right hand into his chest pocket, scanning for his N5 note. After he found it, he begged the other boy who was reluctant and incommunicado (even refused to give his name) to help him with N5, so he could get sachet water.
As he gulped the water, he engaged in a chat with NewsDigest, telling his life’s ups and downs being an almajiri.
Yussuf full of circumcised smiles, queries “If not for necessities, who prefers begging to other decent lifestyles?”
At a tender age, he had learned to control his feelings. His smiling face had paused, but soon resumed. “If we don’t beg, how do we feed ourselves? It’s not until hunger kills us”, he adds.
Possibly deranged, Yussuf represents the true situation of ‘no option’. He is ready to adapt to any jabs life throws. His desire to be enrolled in a conventional school, not adequately covered by the BESDA programme. He’s now considering to venture into buying and selling, as his rights to education is questionable.
As he sobs, he asks “Is it reasonable for us to beg doors to doors while children of our age are in school learning?” As he expects God’s will, he assumes destiny begot him this lifestyle, but much more desired by his parents.
