‘Jonathan’s Almajiri system a wrong policy’

Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has said the Tsangayal school system, otherwise called the Almajiri school system, introduced by the ex-President Goodluck Jonathan administration, was a misplaced priority.

He added that it was wrongly articulated.

Speaking at an All Progressives Congress (APC) media roundtable in Abuja, Ganduje said what should have been done was to find a way of integrating the Almajiri into the normal school system, to avoid stigmatisation in future.

He said it was a waste of resources to build classrooms in the name of Almajiri schools without pupils to attend them, adding: “Tell me, who wants to be called an Almajiri?”

The governor said he had written President Muhammadu Buhari, explaining the measures by the Kano State government to integrate the pupils.

According to him, creating special schools for the Almajiri was abnormal.

He said: “The Jonathan administration introduced the Almajiri school, but it is not well articulated. It is a wrong policy. For example, in my village, we have this school with only 50 pupils and in Kano, we have over three million Almajiri. The number of Almajiri is almost a problem to the number of school children. So the issue is not creating a school.

“If you are creating an Almajiri school, that is abnormal. Who will like to be called an Almajiri? Is it that after completing your studies, your certificate will be tagged Almajiri? And later in life you will be called a graduate of Almajiri school? Which means you were an Almajiri before. So it has some social problems.”