Gombe state government through the office of the Better Education Service Delivery For All (BESDA), has said it is enrolling over 60, 000 Almajiri pupils of Tsangaya into formal schools.
Programme Coordinator of BESDA, Dr Abdullahi Bappah Ahmad, disclosed this to newsmen after inspecting the training exercise of 1, 100 NCE holders engaged to teach the Almajiri pupils under a programme tagged ‘Integrated Qur’an Tsangaya Education,’ to reach the 60, 000 Tsangaya pupils.
He said the BESDA; is a four-year Federal Government/World Bank funded project aimed at mopping-up out of school children to improve literacy, “targeting to reach over 600, 000 out-of-school children in the state.”
Dr Ahmad said the Almajiri education programme would improve literacy of Almajiri pupils in 600 Tsangaya schools in Akko, Balanga, Funakaye, Gombe, Kaltungo, Kwami, Nafada and Yamaltu/Deba local government areas of the state.
According to him, the 1, 100 NCE holder facilitators will teach the Almajirai pupils for nine months at their respective Tsangaya schools selected from the nine LGAs.
“The facilitators would be deploy to learning centres at the Tsangaya schools for nine months after which they (Almajirai) will be enroll in formal schools to continue with their education,” he said.
The project coordinator added that the BESDA project has a target to enroll 67, 000 out-of-school children at inception, but has exceeded the target and enrolled over 126, 000 children into different schools since the commencement of the project in September.
“This is in addition to over 40, 000 outside-of-school girl-children, mostly hawkers rooming the streets aged 5-15, who were enrolled into schools.”
Ahmad added that over 62,000 copies of text books, school uniforms and feeding was provided to primary school pupils in the pilot LGAs of Balanga, Dukku, Funakaye, Gombe, Kaltungo, Kwami, Nafada, Shongom, and Yamaltu/Deba.
