Government Policies, Institutional Capacity and Policy Implementation in the Almajiri System of Northern Nigeria
Keywords:
Almajiri; street begging; public administration; policy implementation; institutional capacity; Northern NigeriaAbstract
The Almajiri system, a centuries-old practice of learning the Qur'ān in Northern Nigeria, has been more and more linked with child begging and deprivation. This study analysed the Almajiri begging system within the framework of Public Administration where emphasis was given to the government policy, institutional capacity and the implementation of government policy, and degree of deprivation of Almajiri in the system. The respondents for this study were 300 made up of 120 public officials, 90 Mallams and proprietors of Almajiri schools and 90 community stakeholders who were selected using multistage sampling. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation and multiple regression were performed to analyse the data. The government policy (M = 2.45), institutional capacity (M = 2.09) and policy implementation (M = 2.36) were rated inadequate with less than the criterion mean of 3.00, while persistence of begging (M = 4.22) and material and developmental deprivation of Almajirai (M = 4.25) were rated very high with more than 4.00 of the criterion mean. Policy, capacity and implementation jointly explained 31.6% of the variance in the persistence of begging, F (3, 296) = 45.52, p < .001, with implementation (β = −0.32) and institutional capacity (β = −0.24) the strongest predictors. There was a strong correlation between begging persistence and deprivation (r = .52). The results indicate that the tradition of education found in the Qur'an is not the main factor behind the continuation of begging, but weak implementation of the policies designed to safeguard and educate Almajirai. The study calls for better intergovernmental coordination, dedicated and transparent funding, access to child welfare services in the Almajiri schools, vocational education integration, and an affirmation of participatory governance and reorientation of child welfare policy from punitive to protective.
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