THE PROBLEM WITH NOMADIC FULANI EDUCATION

Wandering clans of Nigerian cattlemen's children are a part of Nigeria as any major tribe. Therefore, it is only right that they also partake of the same rights and privileges as the rest of us. Less than ten percent of the men and two percent of the female Fulani are formally literate and numerate. The national policy on education stresses that 'education… should be brought close to the environment of the child … [and] whenever possible, arrangements will be made for such children to assist their parents in the morning and go to school in the evening'.

Although the nomadic education programme (under the National Commission for Nomadic Education [NCNE]), which started officially in November 1986, after the Yola National Workshop on Nomadic Education, is fairly successful, a good number of the Fulani have not embraced this 25-year old programme. Government has spent millions of naira in nomadic education programme, which modified curriculum in English, Arithmetic, social studies, and primary science as developed by the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, yet the measure of educational attainment among the Fulani remains low. Why?

In Plateau State, for example, only six of the 100 children in the Mozat Ropp nomadic school are Fulani children, who rotate between herding and schooling.

A top-to-bottom planning where the Fulani are the recipients rather than the planners of their education, dominates the nomadic education policies. For instance, during the first national workshop on nomadic education, only a few Fulani were invited to attend. Ironically, it is at this workshop that far-reaching decisions that will affect the lives of the Fulani are taken.

The English language employed for nomadic education curricula is unsuitable, if not an impediment, to learning. For example, the use of English for instruction at the elementary school level is inappropriate. The National Policy on Education (NPE) states that 'the medium of instruction in the primary school is initially the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community and at a later stage (e.g. Pry iv - v) English'. Learning in the English language is difficult for the Fulani children who have yet to master their own language. According to a study conducted by Dr Ismail Iro, progress of the mobile schools has been curtailed by the shortage of roads and lorries in the rural areas. The financial burden has forced some schools to operate in the open.

While learning in unroofed or partially-roofed space may be possible during dry days, teaching under such conditions is impossible on wet days. Flood, muddy terrain, leaking roofs, and uncooperative weather have resulted in the loss of school days. The uncertainties of the movement of the Fulani make educational planning and student monitoring difficult. Unscheduled out-migration due to environmental failures or conflicts between the farmers and the pastoral Fulani disrupts school operations and classroom composition. Despite N1.04trillion that the MDG project had gulped, since 2006, as disclosed by Hajiya Amina Az-Zubair, the government still cannot develop Fulfulde language, which is the mother tongue of the Fulani, to replace English as a medium of instruction in the nomadic schools.

According to Academic Leadership Live (an online journal) 'the NCNE receives less than 30% of its budget request; it has been compelled to fund its field operations from its scanty resources'. Thus, the NCNE is compelled to spread its lean resources thinly such that its impact is not properly felt and its objectives only tangentially realized.Dr Ismail Iro's study further reveals that under-funding of nomadic education is partly blamed on inaccurate demographic data.

An impact assessment of all Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) projects and programmes related to education executed from 2006 to date, as promised this year by minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa'I, will go a long way in looking into the plights of the nomadic Fulani. Although President Goodluck Jonathan, in his message at the opening session of the UN summit on September 2010, promised that Nigeria would achieve the targets on universal primary education, the education of the nomadic Fulani children should also be seen as a part of the 2015 target for the MDG goals.

•Immanuel Abayomi Afolabi is a student of Communication and Language Arts in the University of Ibadan