ISLAMIZATION OF THE CURRICULUM: AN AGENDA

FOR MODEL ISLAMIC NURSERY SCHOOLS IN

NIGERIA

BY

DR. RAFIU IBRAHIM ADEBAYO

E-mail address: adebayorafiu@yahoo.com

Phone number: 0703 546 7292, 0805 978 3314

DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIONS, UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN,

P.M.B. 1515, ILORIN,NIGERIA.

ABSTRACT

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The current trend in Islamic thought - Islamization of knowledge, is becoming a global issue in the Muslim world. Scholars in various disciplines have been striving tirelessly to recast knowledge in its entirety, from the Islamic perspective. The proliferation of Muslim schools in Nigeria is an indication of the Muslims’ awareness of the programme. However, most of these Muslim schools are yet to grasp the major intent of the programme as they regard mere inclusion of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the school curricula as Islamization of knowledge. This paper exposes the expected Islamization agenda of Muslim schools with particular reference to private Islamic nursery schools. In this wise, the programmes of studies, activities and guidance in the school set-up are given Islamic touch.

INTRODUCTION

Pre-primary education according to the National Policy on Education is “the education given in an educational institution to children aged three to five plus prior their entering the primary school.”1 The first five years of a child are very crucial and important in his life as whatever he is exposed to during the period has a serious and lasting effect on him in future. No serious government takes the education of her citizens at that stage with levity. In France, the central government shares the largest responsibility of the total cost of educating the children while the local authority provides the remainder. In England and Wales, it is the local authorities that control and administer the pre-school education through nationally prepared guidelines. In West Germany, the pre-primary institutions are privately owned.2 This is equally the case in Nigeria.

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As precious as the pre-primary education is, it is sad to note that it received an unappreciable attention by the Nigeria government and citizens for a long time. The National Curriculum Conference held in Lagos in September 1969 as historic as it was, failed to address any issue related to pre-primary education. Rather, it focused much on primary, secondary, tertiary education, teacher education, science and technical education as well as women education.3 The 6-3-3-4 system of education is silent about pre-primary education as well. It was not until recently that the Federal Government of Nigeria broke its silence on it and realized the need to have a say in the conduct of nursery education and thus clearly stated the purpose and direction of pre-primary education in Nigeria in the National Policy on Education (NPE) published in 1977 and revised in 1981and 1998. This policy stipulates that the first ladder of education would be handled and manned by private individuals but monitored by the government.4 Consequently, the Nigerian Educational Research Council (N.E.R.C) started to organize series of seminars, workshops and lectures to educate proprietors of nursery schools on how the goals of nursery education could be achieved.

The indelibility of the knowledge acquired by young and innocent children suggests the paramount importance of early childhood education. Knowledge in childhood is likened to an engraved mark on a rock, which is difficult to rub off. As it is better to train boys than to mend men, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (P.B.O.H.) emphatically mentioned it that children must be religiously educated in their early stages. He asked parents to command their children to be observing salat when they are seven years of age. In another instance, he observed that the moment a child is able to distinguish between the left and the right hands, he should be commanded to pray. They should have been given elementary knowledge of Islam before this time. This is because a child could only be asked to pray after he had been taught what to say while praying,

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how to pray, whom to pray to and other pre-requisites of prayer. Sowing the seed of Iman and Islam in the heart of children was not taken lightly by the companions of the prophet. Once a man was arrested by the police for drinking in Ramadan and when the case was brought before ‘Umar, he remarked: “Woe to you! Even our children are keeping fast in this month”5

Pre-primary education is not a new development among Muslims in Nigeria. The first stage of Qur’anic education started as early as the third year of life. Before the advent of Western education in the country, early Islamic and Qur’anic education was given prominence among the Muslims. Classes were held at the Mallams’ houses under the shade of trees and in the mosque premises. Major Denham and Captain Clapperton observed that such schools were scattered all over Nigeria as they saw them in places like Kuka, Katsina and Sokoto between 1821 and 1830. In 1961 there were about 27,600 Quranic schools with a total of about 423,000 pupils in northern Nigeria.6 In this level of education, emphasis was laid on learning shorter chapters of the Qur’an through repetition and by rote, alphabets of the Arabic language as well as acquisition of some writing skills.

In the Nigeria situation, the reasons for establishing contemporary nursery institutions are summed up in the words of Orebanjo who says:

The increasing awareness in education resulting from the UPE (Universal Primary Education) scheme, the need for working mothers to leave their children in safe hands, the dwindling number of domestic hands, nannies and grandmothers and others factors led to the establishment of these Institutions in urban and rural areas.7

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It is an undeniable fact that nursery schools are established to create an atmosphere conducive for the children to use language for comparing, describing, analyzing and explaining. The language is no other than English. The mother tongue is thus relegated to the lowest ebb. Under the pretext of providing the above opportunities for children, the Christians started establishing nursery institutions as a means of transforming and preserving their religious culture and tenets. The failure of the Muslims to realize that education is a product of a particular worldview and is tailored towards some particular socio-historical and civilizational contexts, made them register their children and wards into these Christian oriented schools. Before they realized it, their children had started praying in Jesus name, closing their eyes while praying and shouting Halleluyah. The little Islamic culture imbibed from home was technically knocked out of their hearts and instead of developing interest in their religion, they are taught to hate it unconsciously.

The reaction of some conscious Muslim organizations and individuals to the evangelization plot of the Christians via nursery education culminated in the establishment of Muslim nursery schools where Muslim working parents could leave their children to be exposed to western education without losing their religious identity. The dwindling patronage of Qur’anic schools by Muslims equally calls for the establishment of Islamically oriented nursery schools. Except in rear cases, most Qur’anic schools operate only in the afternoon for children to attend after their normal western school hours.8 The financial constraints facing most of the Quranic schools as a result of running ‘free education’ by them forced many of these schools to metamorphosise into Islamic nursery primary schools where fees are charged and parents are ready to pay.

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The involvement of Muslims in the contemporary nursery education business is a new development in Nigeria. Schools of such are expected to carry out dual roles of meeting the challenges of western education as well as creating an environment conducive for learning Islamic oriented disciplines. In the bid to combine these two responsibilities, many of these schools have fallen into either of the two extremes of introducing too much Arabic subjects to their curriculum or rather giving too much western subjects priority that Islamic ones are gradually elbowed out. Thus, the need to propound an agenda towards Islamizing the curriculum of Islamic nursery schools to enable them function effectively in the two realms of western and Islamic contexts.

A CRITIQUE OF THE DOMINANT NURSERY SCHOOL CURRICULUM.Various attempts to define, classify, analyze and conceptualize the

word ‘curriculum’ have resulted into loss of some of its essential realities. While some take it to mean what teachers teach and what learners learn, it is a synonym of syllabus, course of study, scheme of work, lesson note or lesson plan to some. However, such mean and shallow definitions have been rectified by Wilkins who sees curriculum as ‘the overall learning programme in a school which covers time-tabled lessons, sports, social activities and all other facilities through which the school aids the development of its pupils.’9 In other words, curriculum consists of the programme of studies, programme of activities and programmes of guidance. The programme of studies refers to all academic subjects offered in schools, while the programme of activities includes inter-scholastic and inter-moral activities like athletics, school publications, music programmes, clubs and societies, all which vitalize the curriculum. The programme of guidance involves guidance services rendered in the school. Concisely, curriculum is the totality of all the experiences, planned or unplanned, which the child is exposed to in the four walls of the school.

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The profanity of the aims and objectives of the dominant nursery school curriculum is one of the serious setbacks of the curriculum. The secularist modernist worldview as well as the dismissal of God as a major characteristic of western education generally raises its ugly head in the nursery curriculum. According to the Nigerian Educational Research Council, the general goals of nursery education in Nigeria are:(i.) To effect a smooth transition from home to school and to provide

adequate care and supervision for the children while their parents are at work;

(ii.) To help the child to adjust to social norms;(iii.) To inculcate in the child a spirit of enquiry and creativity through the

exploration of nature and the local environment, playing with toys, and artistic and musical activities, etc;

(iv.) To teach good habits especially good health; and(v.) To teach the child the basic academic skills.10

One important manifestation of the goals is that they are tailored towards producing godless children who right from the onset of their lives are devoid of seeking knowledge of their creator. It thus produces a materialistic personality in the individual who looks at religion and spiritual needs as private and not basic to human life on this earth.11

In realisation of the above objectives, subjects like Creative Art, Social Norms, Physical and Health Education, Language and Communication Skills, Mathematical Skills as well as Scientific and Reflective Thinking are prescribed by the Nigerian Educational Research Council for nursery schools. Guidelines on these subjects are made available for effective teaching and learning.12 This further reveals the secularist tendency of nursery education curriculum. In this curriculum

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guideline, religious education is conspicuously not included. Education without religion is like tea without sugar, a zombie or rather, a body without soul, and the absence of soul in the body makes it hopeless, useless and valueless. Mutahheri aptly observes the result of such kind of education when he says:

Knowledge without faith is a sharp sword in the hand of a drunken brute. It is a lamp in the hand of a thief to help him pick up the best articles at midnight. That is why there is not the least difference in the nature and conduct of the faithless man of today who has knowledge and the faithless man of yesterday who had no knowledge. After all what is the difference between the Churchills, Johnsons, Nixons and Stalins of today and the Pharaohs, Genglis Khans and Attilas of yore?13

Apart from the above, any education aiming at effecting a smooth transition from home to school but which lacks religious education at that crucial level of education may be contrary to the cultural state of the environment which education must portray. It thus becomes irrelevant to Nigerians majority of who profess one religion or the other; hence the first goal of nursery education is rendered unachievable. Realizing this shortcoming in the nursery curriculum, some schools introduced Religious Education into their curriculum. A sort of window dressing Islamic Studies is introduced into some so-called Islamic nursery schools curriculum as a subject thereby giving the false impression that pure Islamic tenets are imparted to the young ones. Or what can we say of some Christian proprietors who include Islamic Studies as a subject into their schools’ curriculum to lure unconscious Muslim parents to bring their children to their schools? This attitude is confirmed by Salaudeen when he writes:

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The inclusion of Islamic Studies in most of the nursery schools is simply to make them attractive to Muslim parents who will assume that the aspect of Islamic education is being taken care of. In fact, it is merely window- dressing14

The force of homogenization, hegemonization and Europeanization in the name of globalization has eroded not only the Islamic culture from the innocent minds of the young pupils, but also their natural language. The medium of instruction in the conventional nursery schools is English. The standard of nursery schools is measured by the level of their students’ mastery of the language. Without any scintilla of doubt, English is the lingua franca in every nursery school in Nigeria. This however is, at the expense of the mother tongue, which according to the National Policy on Education should be the prescribed language of instruction at that level of education.15 This creates a gap between the theory and practice of education in the country. According to Fafunwa, instruction through the mother tongue at the early stage of education helps to develop curiosity, manipulative ability, manual dexterity, mechanical comprehension and co-ordination of the hand and eye.16 One evil effect of emphasizing foreign language over mother tongues is that it isolates children from their culture and from their nature. They thus become specialists in foreign language, unable to use their own mother tongue and unable to function well in their own world. Thus, education at this stage fails to play the role of cultural transformation and preservation, whereas according to Al-Attas “education preserves the basic structure of society by conserving all that is worthwhile in basic values and institutions by transmitting them to the next generation and by renewing culture afresh whenever degeneration, stagnation or loss of values occurs.”17

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Another significant problem with nursery education in Nigeria is the siting of the nursery schools. There is nothing to write home about in the location of some of these schools. The use of residential houses and face-to-face type of rooms as classrooms is one of the common characteristics of nursery schools in the country. Some are even located very near market squares directly to the main road, while large halls, verandas, garages and sheds with varying degrees of ventilation, sanitation, illumination, equipment and infrastructure are the physical features of many of these schools. As a result of non-availability of space in some of these schools, the provision for outdoor activities is grossly inadequate while the manner of overcrowding of pupils in the classrooms is quite outrageous. The case is not different even in public primary schools. Lamenting on the pathetic status of public primary schools, the ex-minister of Education, Iyorchia Ayu noted, “not many schools could boast of desks, dusters, chalk and staff quarters. Overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated structures remained the typical feature of primary school system.”18

Another glaring shortcoming of the government policy on nursery education is that it makes no provision for the government’s pre-primary schools, which can serve as model for the ones established by private individuals and voluntary organizations. Coupled with this is the influence of materialism on the government itself. At different levels, government charges exorbitant amount of money as registration and annual renewal fees. This step reduces nursery education to middle cadre of the society who can afford the high fees charged by these schools in order for them to meet the financial demand of the government. Thus, government regulations guiding the establishment of private nursery schools connotes that the proprietors must not necessarily need to be qualified professionally, nor committed to the needs of children, but must be rich enough to pay the exorbitant amount

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as registration and renewal fees to the government purse. The throat-cutting school fees consequent upon the government charges no doubt adds to the burden of the Muslims community as many could not afford to pay due to the size of the family in addition to other factors such as indolence, laziness, insensitivity on their part as noticed by Shehu.19 Thus the backwardness of the Muslims in the acquisition of nursery education is imminent.

With the little critical appraisal of the contemporary nursery education system, we contend that there is the need for the Muslims to design and formulate their own nursery education agenda by Islamizing the curriculum of the Muslim schools or else they found their schools as centres of promoting anti-Islamic education, centres of Islamic marginalisation and centres of breeding Muslim children against the worldview and culture of their religion.

AN AGENDA FOR ISLAMIC NURSERY SCHOOLS.The only available agenda for all Islamic nursery schools is no other

than Islamizing their curriculum. This agenda becomes incontestable in view of the dual roles expected of any Islamic school namely functioning effectively as a centre of Islamic culture propagation and production of candidates who will be effectively functional in the contemporary Nigeria situation in terms of western education. Failure to Islamize the curriculum, an Islamic school will incredulously be undoing its worldview and will be producing unIslamic Muslims. This is equally the view of Qutb who succinctly put forward two suggestions on how to avoid such a pathetic situation, saying:

If we are serious about giving religion its true place in educational curricula, we have to do two things almost simultaneously. Fist, we must not restrict religious guidance to the formal traditional lesson. Second, we must reconsider

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the syllabuses devised for this particular lesson and re-evaluate them in most parts of the Muslim world. The objective of religious education is to produce a Muslim man or woman. This end cannot be achieved through a few disintegrated pieces of religious information to be learnt by heart and tested at the end of the school year, especially if one’s concepts, attitudes, morals and modes of behaviour are all non- or anti- Islamic.20

A curriculum becomes Islamized when its programmes of studies, activities and guidance in a school are enriched and vitalised with Islamic teachings and principles. So, by Islamization of curriculum, we mean the practice of intellectual activity and other planned and unplanned activities in the school based on the Islamic concept of the universe, life and man, which a child is exposed to under the control of the school. In this regard, the agenda of Islamizing the curriculum involves the following:

(a) Reformulation of aims and objectives of Nursery Education:The secular nature of western education has been a major

concern for the Muslim intellectuals. The mundane and profane nature of western education takes care of the terrestrial world with no consideration at all for the celestial world. Thus a comprehensive Islamic philosophy of education was defined in the First World Conference on Muslim Education in 1977 that:

Education should aim at the balanced growth of the total personality of Man through the training of Man’s spirit, intellect, rational self, feelings and bodily senses. Education should cater therefore for the growth of Man in all its aspects: spiritual, intellectual, imaginative, physical, scientific, linguistic, both individually and

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collectively and motivate all aspects towards goodness and the attainment of perfection. The ultimate aim of Muslim education lies in the realisation of complete submission to Allah on the level of the individual, the community and humanity at large.21

The above aim of education shows a balanced interaction between the belief system, the knowledge system and the value system, which does not exist in the western education system. As such, we want to uphold the aims and objectives for setting up an Islamic nursery school as itemized by a scholar thus:

(i) To prepare and train the future generation to work as agents of Allah on earth.

(ii) To inculcate in the child the sense of love, care, affection; humility, equity, honesty, integrity, justice and other values based on Islamic ethics.

(iii) To develop in the child a spirit of enquiry and creativity through the exploration of nature and local environment so that he becomes conscious of his responsibility to develop himself and his environment for the benefit of human race and his consequent accountability in the next world.

(iv) To teach the child the basic academic skills based on Islamic epistemology.

(v) To produce a conducive Islamic environment for the proper upbringing of the child and the development of his faculties to realise the full potential of people.

(vi) To put in place amenities both human and material for all round development of the child, spiritually, morally, mentally, culturally and materially in preparation for the adult life.22

(b) Reconstruction of Programmes of Studies:

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For any Islamic nursery school to function effectively in contemporary modern life and for its products to interact meaningfully with their immediate environment, adoption of the western curriculum is very essential. However such curriculum needs to be adapted to suit Islamic taste. In other words, it needs to be enriched with Islamic ethics and values in such a way that the aims and objectives of Islamic education will be realised in the realm of western curriculum. Through this its profane and secular nature will be substituted with divine and spiritual values. It is our considered opinion that the following subjects are expected to be taught from Islamic perspective in Islamic nursery schools:

(i) Mathematical Skills:The knowledge of mathematics becomes imperative in any

Islamic school curriculum considering its indispensability in religious rituals and practices like salat, zakat, hajj and other religious ceremonies that require scientific understanding of the lunar calendar. The laws of inheritance as well as waqf requires proper knowledge of mathematics too.

Counting and recognizing number symbols as well as shapes and colours will be of immense assistance for nursery school children to identify objects, colours of vehicles, car numbers and home addresses. Proper handling of the subject by competent teachers will assist the pupils to recognise the mighty power of Allah in creating natural objects in various sizes and colours. As the Qur’an encourages finding solutions to problems, pupils are also exposed to solving mathematical problems using counting sticks, bottle top, stones, seeds matchsticks and some other materials. With this they are able to count and make simple calculations with numbers. Though the mathematics curriculum of the western education system seems neutral, we feel it can be

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coloured ‘Islamic’ by infusing Islamic values, concepts and beliefs and by using Islamic terminology wherever appropriate.

(ii) English Language:English is a medium of instruction in Nigeria through which

effective instruction with others outside the child’s environment could take place. Any attempt to downgrade the teaching of English in any Islamic school is like an attempt to create a wide gap between the Muslims and the English speaking people in the fields of science, economics, military and cultural achievements.

It was the concession of the Muslim scholars that attended the Sixth International Islamic Education Conference held in the Republic of South Africa that the goals of teaching English language in Islamic schools are ‘to enable learners to develop to the full their potential, to understand and use the language so that they may become better practicing Muslims who will enjoin that which is right and eschew evil. The spiritual, moral, intellectual, emotional and cultural development of the learner will also be targeted via the teaching and learning of the language.’23 The rationale behind teaching the language in Islamic schools is summed up in the following statement as contained in the report:

The mastery of the spoken and written form of English will equip the present and future generations not only to withstand the universal barrage of propaganda and misinformation about Islam, but also to use the language for the purpose of Da‘wah as well as for the upliftment (sic) of the Ummah.24

In Islamic schools, the teachers teaching English as a school subject must be well equipped with Islamic knowledge so that they

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will be able to correct some mistakes about their religion as contained in some English texts. Such spelling mistakes as Moslem, instead of Muslim, Mecca instead of Makkah, Mohammed instead of Muhammad are to be corrected by them following the common transliteration style used by the Library of Congress. It is equally asserted by Al-Faruqi that attempts by some scholars to translate untranslatable Arabic words into English had resorted to distortion of the original meanings of such words. In this wise, the actual words must be applied while their meanings are explained.25

Closely related to this is that some dictionary meanings of Islamic terminologies have been distorted or wrongly interpreted. ‘Mohammed’, for instance, is interpreted as “the prophet who formed the Muslim religion”, while “Muslim” is defined as “a person of the religion started by Mohammed.” Gwong-Wad has rightly observed that the opportunity of the flexibility and richness of the English language coupled with the receptive nature of its nouns to the new entries of lexical terms, has been used as a weapon in the hands of non-Muslim users to discredit and disrepute Islam.26 To drive home his point, he cited the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English which makes the entry of “Mecca” in small letter “m”, violating the language rule of proper nouns. It thus becomes the responsibility of an English teacher to be conscious of these and avoid teaching his pupils such wrong concepts, while he gives an approved Islamic concepts in their proper forms.

It has to be noted that some steps have been taken to discourage the learning of English alphabets based on the conventional secular “A for Apple, B for Ball” method; and this has been substituted for learning Allah’s attributes through an English alphabetical rhyme. A professor has put forward the following:

A is for ALLAH, Yes ALLAH is our only True God

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B is for ALLAH, The Beneficent (Ar-Rahman)C is for ALLAH, The Compassionate (Ar-Rahim)D is for ALLAH, The Dominant (Al-Qahhar)E is for ALLAH, The Everlasting (Al-Baqqi) F is for ALLAH, The Forgiver (Al-Gafur) G is for ALLAH, The Guide (Al-Hadi)H is for ALLAH, The Holy (Al-Quddus)I is for ALLAH, The Inheritor (Al-Warith)J is for ALLAH, The Judge (Al-Hakam)K is for ALLAH, The King (Al-Malik)L is for ALLAH, The Light of Heavens and Earth (An-Nur)M is for ALLAH, The Mighty (Al-Aziz)N is for ALLAH, The Noble (Al-Majid) O is for ALLAH, The Opener (Al-Fattah)P is for ALLAH, The Patron (Al-Waliyy)Q is for ALLAH, The Quickner (Al-Muhyi)R is for ALLAH, The Reproducer (Al-Muid)S is for ALLAH, The Sustainer (Ar-Razzaq)T is for ALLAH, The True and The Truth (Al-Haqq)U is for ALLAH, The Ultimate (Al-Akhir)V is for ALLAH, The Vast (Al-Wasic) W is for ALLAH, TheWise (Al-Hakim)X is for ALLAH, The Xylographer (Al-Muqit)Y is for ALLAH, The Yield (An-Nafic)Z is for ALLAH, The Zenith (Al-cAliyy)27

Although the rhyme above can hardly be taught with relevant instructional materials to facilitate effective teaching and learning, learning it by rote will sharpen the brain of the pupils and it will equally

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avail them the opportunity of memorizing the attributes of Allah without much tears. (iii) Social Norms:

Under this subject, pupils are exposed to learning social habits like correct greetings, respect for others, obeying simple instructions, toilet habits, proper dressing habits, knowing self and one’s family, learning to use socially accepted expressions for requests and appreciation and knowing about the neighbourhood. Through the study of man and his environment in general, pupils’ hearts are opened to the fear and love of Allah, their Creator.

Pupils must also be exposed to correct Islamic greetings and responses. They must be taught to say ‘al-hamdu lillah (praise be to Allah) whenever they sneeze instead of “Excuse me”. The expression yar-hamka Allah (May Allah’s Blessings be upon you) must be said by a second person instead of ‘sorry’ by him while the corresponding reply ‘Yahdikumu Ilah’ (May Allah guide you) be said by the person who sneezed to the second person.

(iv) Scientific and Reflective Thinking:The objective of teaching science in any Islamic nursery school is

for the child to observe nature and to reflect on the beauty and wonder of nature and be aware of Allah as the Provider of everything.

For proper integration of scientific and Reflective Thinking into the Islamic school curriculum, we strongly suggest a practical approach whereby pupils, for instance, are practically involved in planting of seeds, watching and observing their growth. Pupils must be taken to flower gardens, river; poultry and animal farms for them to see the wonders of

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Allah. They should be shown such natural endowments as sky, sun, rain, stars and many others while relevant examples must be drawn from them as well. This, to a large extent, will assist them to ponder and realise the oneness of Allah, their Creator.

(v) Islamic Studies:In order to foster the spiritual, emotional and intellectual

consciousness of Islam among the pupils and to inculcate and develop Iman, taqwa , love for Islam, Islamic identity and noble characters in the pupils, Islamic Studies is paramount among the subjects to be taught in any viable Islamic nursery school. To start with, a conducive Islamic atmosphere needs to be ensured. Simple Islamic etiquettes, and such topics as the pillars of Islam, Iman and its attributes, the primary sources of Islamic Law, names of some prophets, the Attributes of Allah and other rudiments of Islamic Studies are expected to be taught.

Morality is another aspect of Islamic education a child should be exposed to. It is generally admitted that religious education has a crucial role to play in any effective moral education programme. While discussing this particular issue, Orebanjo concludes:

To think of introducing moral education into schools without any connection with religion is to ask all schools to wait for a couple of years before the new breed of teacher is ready.28

The above claim buttresses the stand of Islam on inseparability of religion and morality from Quranic perspective. In short, such virtues as goodness to parents, obedience to authority, friendliness, honesty, kindness are expected to be inculcated in the pupils in Islamic schools. Morality can be injected into the pupils through telling stories of different

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personalities in Islam as well as living by practical examples of the teachers.

(vi) Quranic Arabic:-Arabic is the universal language of Islam. It is the language of the

Qur’an and the language of the formal worship in Islam. As no one can study Islam effectively without having the knowledge of Arabic, it becomes incumbent upon any Islamic nursery school to introduce Arabic and Qur’an into its curriculum. Through this, the pre-primary Islamic school is able to function properly as an Islamic nursery school with provision of a solid foundation in Islamic education including the ability to read the Qur’an in Arabic. It is when this is achieved that the problems of producing half-baked Islamists and graduates in Islamic Studies who could not read the Qur’an in its original language will be checked right from the grassroot.

A child of nursery age must be able to recognise and identify letters of the Arabic alphabets and vowels. He should be able to recite some Arabic rhymes and poems and mention some objects in Arabic. Memorization of short chapters of the Qur’an should also be introduced to train the child’s memory. The use of audio-visual aids could be of immense importance for the teachers to arouse the interest of the pupils in the memorization exercise.

(c) Reshaping the Programme of Activities

As a matter of fact, all academic programmes in any Islamic nursery school must be accompanied by programmes of activities, which promote incidental learning through play. Play is as important to children as food. It is the major pre-occupation of every child before he is old enough to go to school. Through play, he learns how to handle the objects around him, develops physically and socially, and through his

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interactions with others, he develops morally. As such, play should be constructively monitored for learning to take place informally. Enough play materials and educative toys must be made available for the pupils to boost their learning. Since a corrupt environment can corrupt the best of natures, while a good environment can encourage and sustain the best that is within the pupils, it becomes imperative to provide an environment conducive for the pupils to play and interact with others, while they must be given enough time to play, for learning to take place unconsciously.

Games, music, drama and other scholastic activities in the school must be adequately reshaped to portray Islamic teachings. Separate avenues must be prepared for boys and girls during sports, while a befitting sports outfit that would not expose their bodies should be prepared too.

In order to encourage and strengthen the Iman, as well as to enrich their commitment to Islam, pupils must also be exposed to Islamic centers, mosques, bookshops, libraries and prominent Muslim personalities like Shaykhs, Muslim Obas, Emirs and others. Excursions to important Islamic historical places will equally assist in broadening them intellectually and spiritually.

It is equally important that such societies as Literary and Debating, Farmers Club, Arabic Club, Junior Engineers and Technologists Society (JETS), and others be given Islamic touch, both in their conduct and organization.

(d) Revitalizing the Programme of Guidance:Another major agenda in the line of action of Islamic nursery school is

to vitalise its programme of guidance in the perspective of Islam. The

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school is expected to render guidance services not only to the pupils but also to the parents. Through the school’s programme of guidance, pupils are assisted to effect smooth transition from home to school, develop learning skills and values and participate meaningfully in the opportunities provided by the school in curricula and co-curricular activities. On the part of the parents, they have the opportunity of understanding their children’s educational progress as well as developing realistic perception of their children’s development in relation to their potentials. The guidance role of the schools calls for appointment of trained, capable and knowledgeable staff that will be of good example for the pupils.

The Holy Qur’an as well as the hadith of the Prophet serves as the major guide for the pupils. In other words, whatever guide or counsel a teacher gives the pupils must be in consonance with the dictates of Islam. Any theory that goes contrary to this is not allowed, as the school could not afford training the young ones contrary to the worldview of their religion.

(e). Designing a programme for exceptional childrenThe inequality of human beings has different forms. We categorise

exceptional children on the basis of their peculiar natural characteristics. These include intellectual, communication, sensory, physical and behavioural characteristics. A child also becomes exceptional by virtue of the fact that he loses his father at tender age. A Muslim should not be denied his right to education because of certain physical defect in him. As such there is the need for private Islamic nursery schools to design a programme for exceptional children in their environment. This can take the form of organising special schools where all the pupils who have the same disability are gathered together. It is not too much to have Muslim nursery school for the blind or the deaf for instance. In such special schools, teachers specially trained to teach children with particular types

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of disabilities are employed while special equipment designed for such kind of disabilities are equally made available. Where it is too cumbersome to have special schools, the schools should accommodate the disabled ones in their regular schools at least to interact with their non-disabled counterparts.

It needs to be mentioned that in Nigeria, the Christians have been taking a leading role in the education of the disabled pupils. As far back as 1914, the Iberekodo Leprosy Settlement in Abeokuta was founded by the Church Missionary Society {CMS}. The society was equally responsible for the establishment of the Oji River Rehabilitation Centre in 1960. The Sudan Interior Mission established the first school for the blind in 1940 on experimental basis while the Sudan United Mission established the Gindiri School for the Blind in Barikin Ladi near Jos in 1953. In 1962, the Catholic Mission with the assistance of the Irish sisters of Charity established the Pacelli School for blind children at Surulere Lagos. Also, the Wesley School for the Deaf, Yaba; and the Ibadan Mission for the Deaf and others are the handiwork of Christian missionaries.29 It was later that some state Governments saw the need to complement the efforts of the missions in this laudable and highly rewarding undertaking. It thus becomes imperative for Muslim proprietors of private schools to stand to the task of educating the exceptional children to check the menace of street begging. The purpose of designing special education programme as contained in the National Policy on Education is:

i. to give concrete meaning to the idea of equalizing educational opportunities for their physical, mental, emotional disabilities not withstanding,

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ii. to provide adequate education for all handicapped children and adults in order that they may fully play their roles in the development of the nation, and

iii. to provide opportunities for exceptionally gifted children to develop at their own pace in the interest of the nation’s economic and technological development .30

In order to provide opportunity for orphans to have easy access to education and to become useful Muslim citizens, there is the need for a model Islamic nursery school to design a programme that will take care of the orphans. This can be in form of providing free education for them so that they can be brought up and trained in Islamic manner. Kind treatment of orphans is a responsibility imposed on capable Muslims by Allah and the prophet and its reward in the hereafter is unquantifiable. As such, Muslim proprietors of nursery schools must see the need to have an agenda for orphan education as a matter of religious duty.

CONCLUSIONConsidering the fact that Islamic nursery schools have dual roles to

play, it becomes essential to marry and mend both Islamic and western systems of education for fruitful result. Islamizing the curriculum of Islamic nursery schools becomes imperative for them to function well in the two realms. Through this, all the learning experiences the pupils are exposed to in the school become God-centered as against Western curriculum which is tailored along achieving material wealth of this life alone with no consideration for the here-after. Also, the programmes of activities, studies and guidance in the school system if Islamized prepare and train the pupils to work as agents of Allah on earth, as against western curriculum which has led to social degeneration, misuse of

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authority and wealth and other socio-political and economic ills in the society.

The big task ahead achieving this agenda in our educational set up is the training of teachers to implement the Islamized curriculum. Or how can the western-trained teachers cope with this new development? Further still, the so-called secular texts which are inimical to Islam but which are being used in Muslim schools serve as another cog in the wheel of the progress of this new agenda. Thus, there is the serious and urgent need for Muslim intellectuals and academics from various disciplines to collectively and individually rise to the task of writing texts on their areas of specialization from the perspective of their religion. This demands combined efforts of scholars of Islamics and Muslim scholars in other areas of disciplines. On the other hand, our schools need to be employing competent Muslim teachers to take care of the young ones. These teachers must be sponsored to attend various workshops, seminars and lectures on Islamization of knowledge for them to be well- equipped and face the challenges before them.

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Endnotes 1. Federal Republic of Nigeria, The National Policy on Education (3rd

Edition) 1998. P. 10.2. N. Hans, Comparative Education, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul,

1982, pp. 254-320.3. A.A. Adeyinka et.al “African Philosophy of Education with Particular

Reference to Nigeria” in Adekunle Akinyemi (Ed), Book of Readings in Educational Theory and Practice, vol. 1, University of Ilorin, Institute of Education, 1992, pp. 111-112.

4. See, The National Policy on Education, (Revised) 1981. P.10; and also the 1998 Revised Edition, p. 11.

5. Zakarya Kandhlwi, The Teachings of Islam, London, n.p. n.d. P.205.6. Albert Ozigi and Lawrence Ocho, Education in Northern Nigeria,

London, George Allen & Unwin, 1981. P.7.7. M.A. Orebanjo, “The Nigeria Nursery / Primary School – The Way

Forward.” West African Journal of Education, vol. xxi No. 1. 1980. P. 13.

8. Badmos Yusuf, “An Examination of the Tradition of Qur’anic Learning in the Ilorin Emirate of Nigeria.” Journal of Arabic and Religious Studies (JARS), Vol. 12, University of Ilorin, Department of Religions. Dec. 1995. Pp. 61-64.

9. Edward Wilkins, Education in Practice. London, Evans Brothers. 1976. P. 60.

10. Nigerian Educational Research Council (NERC), Curriculum Guidelines for Nigerian Pre- Primary (Nursery) Schools. Ibadan, Evans Brothers. 1988. Pp. 8-9.

11. Farhan Ishaq. (1989) “Islamization of the Discipline of Education”. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 6 No 2. Herndon, IIIT/AMSS, 1989. Pp. 309-314.

12. N.E.R.C., Curriculum Guideline, p. 10-27.

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13. Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahheri, Islam, Man and Universe. Karachi, The Islamic Seminary Publications. 1990. P. 29.

14. Salaudeen Yusuf.(1991) “Islamization of Knowledge: A Workplan for Islamic Nursery Education.” Muslim Education Quarterly . Cambridge, The Islamic Academy, vol. 9. No. 1. 1991. P. 35.

15. See The National Policy on Education, 3rd Edition. P.9.16. A. Babs Fawunwa, Education in the Mother tongue: A Nigeria

Experience. (The Six-year (Yoruba) medium, Primary Education Project at the University of Ife). West African Journal of Education, Vol. 19,No. 2. 1975. Pp. 213 – 227.

17. Salisu Sheu, “Islamizing the Education System: Toward an Alternative Education Theory and Agenda for the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria.” A Paper Presented at a Two-Day National Workshop in Islamization of Knowledge jointly organized by IIIT Nigeria office and UDUS Sokoto, 15th – 16th May 2000. P. 5.

18. B.O. Ukeje, “Schooling : The Politics, Premise, Process, Practice and Product “ in B. Ipaye (ed): Research on Schooling in Nigeria . Introductory Readings. Ondo, Centre for Research on Schooling, Adeyemi College of Education . 1995. PP. 146 – 147.

19. Salisu Sheu, “Islamizing the Education System…,” p. 18. 20. Muhammad Qutb, “Religion, Knowledge and Education” in Al-Attas

(Ed.) Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education, Jeddah, King Abdul-Aziz University & Hodder and Stoughton, 1979. P. 55.

21. Syed Ali Ashraf, New Horizons in Muslim Education, Cambridge, Hodder and Stoughton and the Islamic Academy. 1985. P. 4.

22. Ghulam Sarwar. (1996) “Islamic Education : Its Meaning, Problems and Prospects.” Issues in Islamic Education , London, The Muslim Educational Trust. 1996. Pp. 13-14.

23. Interim Report on 6th International Islamic Education Conference (First International Workshop) 20-25 September 1996, Islamic College, Cape Town, South Africa. P. 21.

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24. Interim Report, p. 21.25. Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi, Toward Islamic English, U. S. A. IIIT. 1988. PP. 11-14.

26. Aliyu Umar Gwong-Wad, “Islamization of English Language and Its Teaching in a Secular State”, Al-Ijtihad – The Journal of Islamization of Knowledge and Contemporary Issues, Vol. 1, No. 2, Kano, IIIT Nigeria Office, July 2000. Pp. 78-79.

27. Hussain Akande Abdul-Kareem, “What Makes an Islamic School Truly Islamic.” A Key Note Address presented at the Annual National Conference of the Nigerian Association of Model Islamic Schools (NAMIS) held at Government College Apata-Ganga, Ibadan between 3rd and 5th April 2003. Pp. 7 – 8.

28. M.A. Orebanjo, “The Relationship Between Religious and Moral Education.” West African Journal of Education, Vol. xviii No. 7.1974. P. 444.

29. S.O. Oladipo, Elements of Special Education for Certificate Students, Oyo, Odumatt Press and Publishers. 2000. PP. 11 – 14.

30. The National Policy on Education, 1998. P. 39.

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