FG, EU, Plan International Nigeria Unveil Manuals For Gender Responsive, Tsangaya Reformation Education

The training manuals on Gender responsive Education Sector planning and Tsangaya education reformation have been unveiled.

The training manuals are for capacity-building training of civil society organisations to engage with relevant stakeholders in ensuring gender-responsive plans and budgets as well as ensuring the effective implementation of the Tsangaya Reformation agenda of the government.

At the event in Abuja, the Director, Programme Quality and Influencing, Plan International Nigeria, Helen Idiong noted that theTsangaya system has been in existence for years in the country.

According to her, ”Over the years, the context has somehow changed and so we have found out that over the years the children in this sector are usually on the street, Almajiri children and they don’t have the educational qualification required to help them in the current content that we live.”

Helen Idiong said the objective of the training manuals is to see how CSOs can advocate to the owners and implementers of Tsangaya Education system.

”And also see how to transform it without losing the religious value but, add the context of the reality that we live in so that they can have basic literacy and numeracy skills along with the religious value to better fit into the society.”

”Most things we do in our lives have to do with the level of knowledge that we have when children have been married off at an early age, there is a tendency that they will also have children and marry these children off at an early age because they don’t have the education to understand the impact of early marriage.

She observed that there was a need to reform the system with literacy and numeracy skills so the girls would grow up understanding the dynamics and make different choices in their lives as well as understand the impact of early marriage and having many children.

The Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Sokoto state, Dr Jabir Sani Maihula called for collective efforts to solve the challenges confronting the system.

”The issue of Tsangaya Education which is nomadic education or quranic education is predominant in northern parts of the country.”

”Some statistics suggest that we have the highest number of out-of-school children, which is the highest number of conventional education and one of the key problems to this is insecurity,” he said.

”The out-of-school children are coming out in Sokoto from two Tsangaya schools, and three from refuge camps if you don’t give people security, they are evicted and ejected from their places and they cannot talk about education they are only looking for how to live and survive that is why the issue of out-of-school children are high.’‘

”It is a collective effort all hands must be on deck, it must have a holistic approach from the government and stakeholders to see how we can bring about security in northern parts of the country.”

On his part, the National Moderator Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) Duke Ogbureke said the manuals had integrated Western education into Tsangaya system and some life skills.

” So that while the children are getting Quranic education, they are not left behind they are carried along so they grow as adults they find a space to belong.”

He called for necessary policy, adequate reliable data, and funding to address the challenges of out-of-school children.

‘‘Let’s bring literacy and numeracy to them, with adequate support from policymakers and investments by government the challenge of funding makes the international community pull out which collapsed the system.

”With adequate investment by both state government and federal government but particularly state governments, if they agree to invest sufficiently to support the system and continue to train the facilitators that teach the students, and also provide financial support to a very large extent.

”It will not only deal with the issue but it will help to curb poverty, insecurity, and curb the population growth because you need some level of education to understand the implications of having very many children that you cannot cater for,” he added.

The programme was organized by Plan International Nigeria, with support from the European Union (EU) and in collaboration with Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA), and relevant government ministries and agencies.