Seven years after he left office, former President Goodluck Jonathan, on Monday revealed that he embarked on the Almajiri schools programme in the North while he was in office to infuse Western education curriculum into the Islamic education to make the pupils employable and check incessant crisis and insecurity.
Jonathan stated this, yesterday, while delivering the keynote address at the maiden Bayelsa State Education Summit, with the theme “Optimising the Delivery, Performance and Sustainability of Outcomes in the Education Sector,” at the Conference Hall of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, in Yenagoa the Bayelsa State capital.
He explained that his vision and philosophy of development are be based on education as there cannot be a functional society without a functional education system, noting that education remains the key to change the country.
The former president, who commended Governor Douye Diri’s administration for organising the summit, which is aimed at fashioning a road map for the educational sector, said such roadmap once developed should be passed into law so that no succeeding governor could unilaterally alter it and stressed that everything must be done in the interest of the people.
Jonathan further noted that greater attention should be focused on transition to Information Communication Technology, ICT, as ICT education is gradually phasing out other disciplines, just as he also emphasised the need for teaching of international languages and development of a common language for the state.
He said: “When I was the Vice President, I was discussing with one of my Technical Assistants from Anambra State about the crisis in the North and how we can tackle it. Some group of young boys appears not to have future and we cannot allow the system to remain like that so that we don’t have crisis.
“We went around the North, discussed with the clerics who teach these boys under trees and makeshift buildings. We also discussed with the emirs.
“They (Almajiris) felt that they were educated but the society still rejects them. Even their local government council cannot employ them even as messengers because they don’t have any element of Western education attached to the Koranic education.
“That was why my administration insisted that we must assist the northern states. The idea was to incorporate Western education into their Islamic learning so that they can have a balanced education.
Diri tasks IOCs on scholarships for host communities
Also speaking at the forum, Governor Diri stressed the need for a central language and urged the summit to look at the missing links and explore avenues for the private sector to partner with government in implementing its vision for education.
Diri also called on international oil companies to provide special scholarships for children from oil producing communities as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, in addition to the provision of basic social amenities.
He said Bayelsans must be global citizens and open up the state while urging the summit to consider distant communities in Ekeremor, Southern Ijaw and Brass local government areas while discussing digitalisation of education.
