The Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu, His Eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar has commissioned a Modern Islamic School, popularly known as Almajiri School or Tsangaya School, in Gombe, to address the challenges of out-of-school children in Gombe State.
The traditional Islamic School to be called Gombe Integrated Qur’anic Education Centre, which has been in existence for over forty years, was founded by a renowned Qur’anic Teacher, Gwani Sani for Qur’anic memorisation and recital.
It is located in the Yelenguruza community of Akko Local Government Area of Gombe State, the school is recorded to have produced over 1, 000 Qur’anic reciters and memorisers since its establishment.
Sultan Abubakar said he came to Gombe in solidarity with and support of Governor Yahaya’s advancement of Qur’anic Education “which is part of our religion and history that we could not afford to abandon. Our forefathers promoted Islam through education because education is the catalyst for any development and I am happy governor Inuwa is treading the same path of progress”, Sultan Abubakar.
He urged the people to make good use of the education centre by taking full ownership because it was a rare opportunity to have such a centre of education and civilization in one’s domain.
In the meantime, Governor Yahaya described the event as historic, reassuring of his administration’s commitment towards the provision of education for all indigenes of Gombe State.
He said the move was to redeem and uphold the long history of Gombe city as the centre of Qur’anic education, which prompted his decision to modernise the whole system by intervening in the Tsangaya School System and providing a more befitting environment for the students and scholars.
The Governor said since the advent of Islam, students from within and outside Nigeria trooped to acquire Qur’anic and Islamic education, which had produced hundreds of thousands of Qur’anic and Islamic Scholars.
He gave the assurance that through the Better Education Service Delivery for All, BESDA, Programme, his government was ready to sustain the programme for the interest of the people of Gombe State.
According to him, a similar Tsangaya model will be replicated in five locations across the Senatorial zones of the state.
“It is a, we will not rest on our oars until we take education to all nooks and crannies of Gombe the state” Governor Yahaya said.
The school is provided with modern teaching and learning facilities, Mosque, water supply, a hostel, toilet facilities, accommodation for teachers, skill acquisition centre among others.
He called on other state governments to replicate the project in their states to enable the Almajiri pupils to acquire formal education in their ‘Tsangaya’ Schools and Centres.
The governor noted that there were over 500, 000 children in the state who do not go to formal school adding that the number increases due to the influx of immigrants from crisis states.
He said the Federal Government had in the past built similar modern Tsangaya schools across the country, but that they become nonfictional because they were sited on the outskirts of towns.
Meanwhile, the Sultan of Sokoto commissioned the modern integrated Qur’anic school and lauded the governor for the project, saying it will transform the Almajiri education in the state.
The Sultan also said all the citizens needed to have access to at least basic formal education in addition to Islamic knowledge noting that such integrated schools could provide the Almajiri with the opportunity to acquire the basics of modern education.
He said his government cooperated with National Board for Arabic and Islamic Education, NBAIS to give training to Qur’anic Teachers and to facilitate proper certification for the Tsangaya Students.
Dominica Nwabufo
