President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday assured that every Almajiri in the country would be taken off the streets and put in school by September this year. This means that by that month, there would be no such citizen of the country parading the streets.
The federal and state governments had often expressed concerns about the growing number of kids who have been pushed into the system. As a result, President Jonathan’s administration had embarked on the construction of special schools for the Almajiris
Speaking in Lafia at the inauguration of the TA’AL Model Primary School constructed by the Nasarawa State Government, President Jonathan, represented by Vice President Namadi Sambo, however did not state how the government hopes to accomplish such a task, giving that the country does not have a statistics or accurate record of the population of Almajiris.
He disclosed further that the government had completed 120 out of the 143 Almajiri model schools it is constructing across the northern states of the federation.
His words: “We have agreed at the last Economic Council meeting that by September, we would have all the less-privileged children participating and learning in all these schools.”
Commending Governor Umaru Al-Makura of Nasarawa State for his commitment to the education sector in line with the transformation agenda of the Federal Government, the president put the figure of the less-privileged children in the country at about 9.5 million, saying this number had been so affected that they cannot go to school. He said this is why the government has been responsible for providing them with learning environment to meet their future challenges.
He added that the government had provided infrastructure in the schools and had given approval for the provision of free textbooks and uniforms to all the pupils, saying it would contribute towards the provision of laboratory and all other teaching and learning equipment in the schools.
He assured Nasarawa State of federal government’s continuous partnership through the provision of counterpart fund under the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme.
In his remark, Governor Al-Makura described the inauguration of the model school as marking the commencement of the new UBE-ICT Education Policy in the state’s primary and junior secondary schools. He expressed belief that “this will accelerate the acquisition of computer literacy in our schools and lay the foundation for the turn-around of the fortunes and prosperity of basic education.”
He said contracts had been awarded for the construction of 36 of the model schools across the 13 local government areas of the state, adding that the model school is made of two blocks of eight classrooms each and 32 units of cistern designed to handle Early Child Care Development Education, (ECCDE).
The governor said the primary and junior secondary schools have common facilities like ICT, library, arts & crafts, workshops, science laboratories and a multi-purpose hall, stressing that his administration had commenced the construction of three special schools for children considered as physically challenged.
