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This program in Nigeria sends children from the streets into the classroom

Safiyanu Mati stands at the blackboard, pointing a cane at letters of the alphabet scrawled in chalk. As he reads each letter aloud, the 25 other students in the room repeat after him in unison. When Safiyanu reaches “z,” teacher Mohammed Yahaya smiles approvingly and gestures for him to return to his seat.

“Next is parts of the body,” Mr. Yahaya announces. Immediately, the children leap to their feet, and their voices again fill the small, yellow-walled classroom.

“My head, my shoulders, my knees, my toes,” they say together in English, touching those body parts as they eagerly follow along.

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Students of the “almajiri” system often lack access to formal schooling. One intervention program instills a love of learning and fosters self-esteem.

But this class in the northern Nigerian city of Jos is no ordinary one.

The students are children who have been sent away by their parents or guardians to study at Quranic boarding schools in what’s known as the almajiri system. Inspired by the prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina, the system was originally designed as a means of broadening Islamic education in precolonial Nigeria. Children traveled many kilometers from home to live under the tutelage of religious scholars, or mallams.

The system has since deteriorated, however. Today, with little government support – which was cut off during British colonial rule in favor of formal schools – many of the children don’t receive formal education beyond learning to recite from the Quran and are left to survive by begging or working menial jobs. All over northern Nigeria, these children roam the streets instead of attending classes. According to estimates cited by UNICEF, there are 10 million children in the country who are in the almajiri system, mostly boys.

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