ABUJA – The Federal Government has so far inaugurated 89 Almajiri integrated schools out of 125 earmarked for construction in 2014 nationwide, the Minister of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, has said.
Shekarau, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Planning Department of the Ministry of Education, Dr Amalaha Okezie, disclosed this at the Stakeholders’ Meeting on Almajiri Integrated Schools Programme.
He said the programme was to integrate Arabic and Quranic schools into basic education and ensure that young people were taked to schools and students who were out of schools brought back to schools.
The Minister of National Planning, Dr Abubakar Suleiman, said the meeting was to articulate a clear road map for the sustainability of Almajiri Integrated Schools Programme in the country.
“The purpose is to encourage a culture of self-reliance as well as providing the nutritional needs of the schools.
“For us as a planning institution, it is incumbent upon us to ensure the sustainability, especially in the face of the dwindling nation’s major resource which is oil.
“The tremendous success recorded by this programme within short period of its introduction aptly shows the impalatable consequence we as a people could face if allowed to relapse – God forbid,’’ Minister said.
Suleiman said the meeting aimed at generating framework with which funding, logistics and other inherent challenges would be addressed.