Buhari blames state governments for Almajiri system of education

President Buhari blamed the State Governments for Almajiri system of education while playing host to members of the Progressives in Academics at the State House in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to Buhari, the Islamic education associated with begging on economic and religious grounds exists because the state governments are not doing their jobs. 

“The problem of education, I hope when you are going to produce your paper you should be referring to the constitution – What the Centre (Federal Government) is supposed to do; what the state is supposed to do and what the local governments are supposed to do.

“And that again, you reflect on the basis for revenue allocations from the centre which is being published by the Nigerian press every quarter – the amount of money earned and how it is divided by the three tiers of government.

“The people are deliberately criticising the government – when I say the government of course I mean the Federal Government, for the Almajiris. But that is the responsibility of the state governments, which means the state governments are not doing their job,” he said.

The President also insisted that education remains a top priority for his administration as he revealed that his government injected over N1trillion into the education sector in the last four years through the Universal Basic Education Commission, Tertiary Education Trust Fund and Needs Assessment interventions.

“We also released N25 billion to public universities to pay earned academic allowances to lecturers. Of course, you are all aware of the rot we uncovered at JAMB and many other institutions.

“Our home grown school feeding programme covering more than 10 million children, coupled with our social investment initiative has encouraged many parents to send their children to school and also pay for more teachers in classrooms.

“In the next four years we shall continue with the work to transform the sector bearing in mind our high population growth rate, financial challenges and security issues, especially those grossly affected areas,” Buhari added.