Western Education is Sin? Northern States to sue FG over Almajiri school

    State governments are considering dragging the Federal Government to court over the introduction and implementation of the Almajiri school system launched last week by President Goodluck Jonathan. The states claim that the scheme was in breach of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Act 2004.

In a swift reaction, UBEC Executive Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Ahmed, dismissed the threat, saying the Almajiri school programme was funded from Education Imbalance Fund. He said it was an exclusive interventionist programme of the Federal Government.

Dropping the hint at the weekend, chairman of State Universal Basic Education Commission (SUBEB) in one of the North-central states told that SUBEB would go to court to stop the scheme.

“The Act, establishing UBEC empowers it to formulate policies, prescribe minimum standards and allocate funds to states for the successful implementation of the programme. The responsibility of implementing lies with the states through SUBEB,” the chairman said.

Citing Section 9 (e) of the Act which charges UBEC to “collate and prepare after consultation with the states and local governments, and other relevant stakeholders, periodic master plans for a balanced and coordinated development of basic education in Nigeria” the chairman said the Federal Government did not consult SUBEB before introducing the scheme.

“What happened is that a few officials of the ministry (of education) travelled to Indonesia and returned to introduce the Almajiri school system. That is, without any input from us. This is unacceptable,” he said.

The chairman said it was unfair for the government to spend N240 million to build one school for 70 Almajiris and not up to N5 million for primary schools in the southern states. “How many primary schools in the South have boarding facilities, libraries and laboratories? The Amnesty programme created a new class of special students who were ferried abroad for studies. Boko Haram has introduced another special class of VIP pupils. After this, maybe MASSOB will create a situation where we will take the students in the South-east to the moon,” he noted.

The SUBEB boss accused the Federal Government of blackmailing states through UBEC, “so that they can spend our matching grants.” According to UBEC website, only Adamawa, Kano and Zamfara states had completely accessed their matching grants from the Federal Government from 2005 to Febraury 13, 2012, leaving close to N31 billion as un-accessed funds.

However, the UBEC boss said the failure to access the matching grants by the states was entirely their fault.

He disclosed that the schools being funded from the Education Imbalance Fund cost N185 million each, adding that their numbers would be determined by the population of Almajiris in each state.

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Posted: at 18-04-2012 10:38 AM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

Opening such schools is a good move, I wonder why the so-called state governors are moving to stop it. What have they done so far to save those children? Nothing. To be, irrespective of what other people will say, these schools are good. It was a good move by the Federal Government.

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Posted: at 18-04-2012 11:53 AM (13 years ago) | Hero