{EDUCATION} NBAIS results equal WAEC, NECO grades – Prof Shafi’u

What informed the decision to have NBAIS and how would it complement other examination bodies in the country?

 

When I assumed office in the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS), I went through the files. Fortunately for me, I came across some papers where the late Premier of the Northern Region,...

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What informed the decision to have NBAIS and how would it complement other examination bodies in the country?

 

When I assumed office in the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS), I went through the files. Fortunately for me, I came across some papers where the late Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello (Sardauna of Sokoto), proposed how Arabic and Islamic Studies should be taught in the North.

The syllabus came about when in 1960 the late Sardauna formed a committee that was saddled with the responsibility of coming out with ways on how the teaching of Arabic and Islamic Studies can be improved in Northern Nigeria. That committee was chaired by the then Minister of Education, Alhaji Isa Kaita and other six senior ministers of the region. Sardauna emphasised that Islamic and Western education need to move together in order to achieve what he called ‘Balanced Education’. Sardauna gave much attention to that committee and that was how the School for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Kano; Sheikh Sabah in Kaduna and some others in Northern Nigeria came up.

It was the committee that gave an advice for a department to be established in the Northern region’s ministry of education to take charge of that programme. Because of the importance that the Sardauna attached to that department, he made it independent and he appointed Professor Halliru Binji to head it, that is, the Islamic Education Unit.

Apart from that, Sardauna set up another committee of emirs, under the leadership of Sarki Jafaru of Zazzau and asked the committee to come up with advise on how to improve Islamiyya schools and the study of Islamic education. That was how the department continued to run under the Northern region.

When states were created, because of the fear that the department may experience the problem of extinction, the committee began to meet at the Institute of Education of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.

That development was the reason why the unit was stationed at ABU’s Institute of Education and that was how other Islamic-oriented schools were opened in the North. When I came to this place, 16 schools were operating under the unit. Having seen the foundation that the Sardauna laid, I felt that I have to improve the system and this is why as at today, we have 360 schools under our board.

Being an Arabic and Islamic education-oriented institute, how are you able to secure Federal Government’s recognition?

It involved struggles and determination as well as meeting all the due processes. This was why the Federal Government recognised us last year to operate as a national examination body like WAEC and NECO. This is the challenge before us now. Before the approval, we made presentations at various meetings of stakeholders convened under the auspices of the GGCE, which brought together educationists from different parts of the country with over 1,000 people in attendance during each meeting.

The approval is something that came out of hard work and the quality of the students we produce as well as the quality of our examinations. Our syllabus is also up to any standard. We have over 360 schools operating under our board. In each of those schools, you would have not less than 300 students. When you multiply that, you can see the population of the students we have.

What we offer in our schools is a balanced education as initiated by Sardauna of Sokoto. We give adequate attention to quality control. This is why our students can sit and pass WAEC and NECO papers in addition to their Arabic and Islamic education subjects, which students that are not trained under the likes of our syllabus cannot. In other words, in our schools we offer the combination of Arabic, Islamic education subjects and those of Western education.

Sardauna initiated the syllabus so as to have youth who can be doctors, engineers or accountants but with knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and Arabic. This is what I think Sardauna meant by ‘balanced education.’

With this approval, our students can secure admission into any Nigerian or foreign university with result earned from NBAIS.

Because of that challenge, the Vice Chancellor of the ABU, Professor Abdullahi Mustapha, has set up a committee to look into ways of achieving success. The committee has presented its proposals and the ABU would give us a site that we would be using before a law is passed by the National Assembly on our new status. Before the law is passed, the federal government has assigned us to NARDC. This is to enable us operate fully before the passage of the law.

We have compiled our syllabus and we have taken it to the NARDC and they have agreed with the syllabus. Therefore, we don’t expect to have any problem in getting the law passed because the population and the quality of our students is something that has national spread, which no government can ignore.

Since the concept was a regional one, how come the board metamorphosed into  a national body?

Well, the board became national when schools from the south began to join. The first southern school that joined us was from Edo in 1990. Another school from Oyo joined, therefore the joining of the southern schools made it national. This is why we have offices and staff in six zones in the country. We have the headquarters of Zone 1 in Kaduna, Zone 2 is in Kano, Zone 3 is in Gombe, Zone 4 is in Ilorin, Zone 5 is in Oyo and Zone 6 is in Enugu.

How do you source funds for the board?

Our funds come from the examination fees we charge our students. Basically, this is the only source of our funding but with this recent development, we hope that we would be getting funding from the government just like other examination bodies.

Another important thing that I also need to explain is that schools that are not in our system can join us but with the conditions that the school in question must have obtained registration with the state government.

They have to also incorporate our syllabus because our syllabus is unique as it has both Western and Islamic subjects, and this is the advantage our students have over others, among other conditions.