By Adamu Lawal Toro
The wooden slate is still there. In 25 Qur’anic schools across Kaduna State, children still sit before their mallam, reciting verses written in ink on the allo, as generations before them did. What has changed is what comes after the recitation. The same children now also learn to read, count and reason in the language of the modern classroom.
This is what reform in northern Nigeria should look like. For decades, the Tsangaya system has been trapped between two loud camps. One side sees sacred heritage, older than the colonial school and beyond the reach of government. The other sees only the almajiri with his plastic bowl at the motor park, and demands abolition. One camp defends the institution and forgets the child. The other pities the child and insults the institution. Neither has put a single pupil in front of a numeracy lesson.
Kaduna has chosen a third path. Under the Reaching Out-of-School Children (ROOSC) Project, which began in April 2024, 25 Tsangaya centres have signed Memoranda of Understanding with the State Ministry of Education. The agreements integrate foundational literacy, numeracy and life skills into the existing Qur’anic curriculum. The Qur’an remains at the centre. Formal learning is added, not imposed.
The ministry recruits teachers in partnership with proprietors and communities, supplies learning materials and pays stipends. In return, the centres commit to protecting children from abuse, neglect, child labour and exploitation. They accept quarterly monitoring, operate as non-profit institutions and remain registered with the Kaduna State Bureau of Interfaith (KADBOI).
That is the wisdom of the arrangement. It does not ask the mallam to surrender his authority. It asks him to share responsibility for the child’s future.
The numbers are modest. The project’s own reporting of its independent third-party verification indicates that there are over 6,000 learners in the integrated programme, supported by 155 facilitators. The target is 50 centres this project year and 75 by the fourth. In a region where out-of-school children are counted in millions, this is a drop in the ocean. But reform built on trust grows slowly. One proprietor who signs willingly is worth more than ten who are forced to comply and quietly resist.
And the urgency is real. We live in a global village where the gate is literacy.
Farmers check market prices on their phones. Traders receive payments by transfer. Jobs are advertised online, bank accounts are opened through apps, and government services are moving steadily to digital platforms. A child who cannot read a form, count his change or follow written instructions is shut out of that world before he reaches adolescence.
What becomes of a boy who can recite many hizb but cannot read a hospital prescription? Who will employ him? Who will lend to him? Who will explain the terms of the loan app that promises him quick money?
The Tsangaya was once the finest school in this region. It produced scholars, judges, administrators and letter writers. It kept pace with its world. The task today is not to replace it but to help it keep pace again. That is why the project’s use of radio lessons matters. It is a reminder that technology need not be expensive to be transformative. A transistor radio in a village compound is also part of the global village.
But a fair commentary must also count what the project has not yet done. The project’s own mapping identified 2,305 out-of-school children with disabilities. So far, 181 have been enrolled.
Fewer than eight in every hundred. These are the children most likely to be left behind twice, first by poverty and then by stigma. Too many of them end up at the roadside, bowl in hand, their disability turned into a begging tool by adults who should know better. The project says medical assessments have been conducted and assistive devices recommended. A recommendation does not push a wheelchair.
A report does not fit a hearing aid. The gap between identification and enrolment is where Kaduna’s sincerity will be tested.
Girls tell a different story, and it is one the project’s own data anticipates. The Tsangaya centres are, by tradition, largely boys’ institutions, and the state’s 2025/2026 out-of-school mapping found more boys than girls out of school: 106,437 boys (56.7 per cent) against 81,282 girls (43.3 per cent). Reaching boys where they already are, in the Tsangaya, is therefore a direct route to closing that gap and moving towards parity. It runs alongside, not instead of, the project’s support for girls’ education: a sustained emphasis on getting girls into school, the distribution of menstrual hygiene kits, and inclusivity champions in schools to make sure the girls who enrol also stay.
Then there is the question every donor-funded project must eventually answer. What happens when the money stops?
The project’s sustainability plan is thoughtful on paper. It speaks of formally recognising non-formal learning centres, absorbing trained facilitators into government service, integrating data into the state’s education management systems, and reflecting successful interventions in state budgets. But almost every one of these measures is framed as something to “advocate for”. Advocacy is not a budget line. A facilitator cannot feed his family on a policy record.
This is where the Kaduna State Government must step forward. If the facilitators trained under ROOSC are allowed to drift away when project funding ends, the state will have spent years building a bridge only to abandon it halfway across the river. Absorbing them, paying them regularly and giving the integrated Tsangaya a permanent place in the education budget is the only proof of ownership that counts.
Other northern states should be watching closely. Kano, Bauchi, Sokoto, Katsina and their neighbours carry the same burden and share the same history. They do not need to reinvent the model. They need to study what Kaduna has done right, learn from what it has not yet done, and begin.
The mallams, too, have a role. Those who have signed deserve commendation for opening their doors. Those still standing at the gate should see that their tradition is not under attack. It is being offered a future.
In the end, this reform will not be judged by the number of MoUs signed or reports submitted. It will be judged by one child.
A boy in a Tsangaya somewhere in Kaduna, Allo in one hand and Exercise book in the other. Beside him, a girl who was once told school was not for her. And with them, a child on crutches who was once hidden from visitors.
If, at 18, they can recite the Qur’an and also read a job advertisement, fill a form and check their own bank balance, the reform will have succeeded. The allo will have done what it has always done. The exercise book will have done what the times demand.
If not, we will have merely given old neglect a new name.
Toro writes from Bauchi.
