islamic education – Ifeoluwa Siddiq Oyelami

In my earlier piece on our malfunctioning informal Islamic school system, I safely concluded that fingers are best pointed at the Muslim community as a whole on the problems facing this local learning centres. Reactions of the readers suggest that many share my opinion and thus, we ask; what are the solutions to these problems?

I decided to air my thoughts on some strategies which I feel could help in putting the local Islamic schooling system to shape, and here they are;

Appreciation

There definitely need to be a rise in value of the system, and the work revolves around person attitude, motivation and reinforcement. The myopic attitude of parents to the gains of the madaris saddens but could be corrected by orientation and reinforcement. Parents should be admonished about the virtues of the knowledge and viable perimeters should be put in place to attract their patronage. Continue reading “Ile kewu on the blink; Recommendations from my little brain” →

“Do not play with Muslim children, they are taught to throw stones at people in their ile-kewu”- these were the words of a preacher to us during my church going days. My mind didn’t belong to the church thus I was quick to identify the falsehood in the words of the evangelist unlike my peers. Little wonder we have a host of them scattered all over today fighting a blind war of hate.

I mentioned this episode to a friend who said one may not really blame them (the preacher and his likes) since its evident some rough things go on in these our local madaris. The thought of ‘omo kewu’ running after lizards, roughly threatening and fighting each other and the dirty and never-ironed madrasah uniform made me give my friend a nod, a partial one! Since we will not blame the Christian cleric like he said, it is essential we answer the complementary question “who is to be blamed”?

Continue reading ““Ile kewu on the blink”, where lies the blame?” →