Dilapidated Asesewa Islamic school appeals for a befitting facility, a mallam and Qur’ans

Correspondence from Eastern Region

The local Adabiyah Islamic School at Asesewa Zongo in the Eastern Region is in dire need of a mallam (teacher), infrastructure and logistics for the academic progress of the pupils.

Community leaders and parents have mounted a spirited appeal to organizations and individuals for assistance to put up a befitting facility to replace the currently dilapidated structure serving as a classroom, to teach the children as well as taking up the responsibility of paying a Mallam to teach the pupils.

In an interview with GhanaWeb at Asesewa Zongo, the community leaders and parents requested immediate assistance to facilitate the school which was built twenty-five years ago to serve as a training center for Islamic children in the Upper Manya Krobo District.

However, the challenges threaten the future of the children. Following the passing of the last Mallam, the about 50 pupils of the school have since been without one, a situation that is currently taking a toll on the children.
Mallams who taught at the school did so voluntarily without any financial rewards but Dauda Abubakar, the Chief of Hausa at the Asesewa Zongo, said such volunteers need to be paid regularly to serve as motivation.

Appealing for a teacher, the Hausa chief said, “The first teacher passed on, the second teacher, he too passed on within this short time but we’re still appealing to people to help us to get someone who’ll come and teach the children because it is very sad that about 40-50 children, no Mallam who’ll come and teach them...so that in the future we too we’ll get some children who’ll recite
the Quran and recite it.”

The absence of a conducive learning environment, he added, posed great danger to the future of the children and the Islamic community, adding that persistent efforts to get the problems addressed through various channels have been unsuccessful.

Dauda Abubakar thus appealed to the Upper Manya Krobo District Assembly, philanthropists, non-governmental and charitable organisations to treat the issue as as a matter of urgency.

The Chief of Asesewa Zongo, Chief Moro Ousmanu said the absence of a teacher was a worrying situation which needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

“If the children don’t get any mallam to teach them, that means these children are not going to get the Arabic well…without a teacher who’s knowledgeable in the Arabic education, that means these our children will go back and already it is these we use in our day to day prayers,” said the Zongo chief.

He fears that the future of Islam in the Upper Manya Krobo District could collapse if urgent steps were not taken find a Mallam to teach the children to take over from them and address the infrastructural and logistical challenges confronting the school.

He cited the successful story of a former pupil of the school who has gone on to pursue further studies in Saudi Arabia, adding that the foundation set for children in the school was solid enough and hence the need for a teacher to continue from where his predecessors left off.

He appealed to the Muslim communities in the country and elsewhere to come to the aid of the school by offering incentives to Mallam to encourage them give off their best.

A parent who gave his name as Ibrahim also expressed fears over the situation. Fearing that the future of the pupils could be jeopardized if the problem was not addressed, he said, "the future would be bleak for them, and joined in making appeals to benevolent organizations, institutions and individuals to support as parents could not finance the cost alone".

According to him, though parents were doing their best, their efforts were not enough to address the problems confronting the facility.