OP Holds Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Tahfidh Education

Author: Pa Modou Cham

In its quest to mainstream Tahfidh (Quranic Memorization Centers) into the national education system, the Gambia government on Friday held a day-long stakeholders’ dialogue on the modernization and integration of Tahfidh.

The event held at the SDKJ International Conference Centre provided feedback on the findings of the inspection visits of the Tahfidh conducted in May and August 2022; the study tour in Senegal and solicited views and inputs for structure, organization and curriculum that incorporate language skills, science, technology, engineering and others.  

Alhagie Essa Darboe, Secretary General of the General Secretariat for Islamic/Arabic Education in The Gambia (AMAANAH) explained that Tahfidhs are the most needed sector that needs the government’s intervention and donors working in the educational field.  He added that according to AMAANAH statistics, they have over 700 centres registered with a population of 26,000 children.

He said: “The children enrolled to memorize the Quran, about 3.5% of the school-going age in the Gambia. It’s a big population and we need to help them to have quality education in this sector. In terms of memorization, they are doing well because the Gambia participated in international competitions and in many cases; our children always emerge on top.”

He stated that the country scored first last year in a competition that involved African countries and won third position in an international competition in Saudi Arabia.

Abdoulie Jarra, Permanent secretary at the Office of the President, representing the Secretary-General and the Head of the Civil Service, said Tahfidhs recently emerged independently as a new form of Quranic teaching and learning, resulting in public demand. He said the intervention of the office of the president was triggered by a series of fire outbreaks in most of the centres, particularly the recent one that happened on 17 October 2021, claiming the lives of many people.

“Following an investigation into the matter, a task force was sanctioned at the office of the president to assess the conditions of all boarding schools as to whether they complied with the standards, appropriate infrastructure, and adequate safety precautions to evade a reoccurrence of such incidents,” he said.

He continued that the task force also investigated ways to restructure the Tahfidh towards providing not only Quranic memorization but quality and basic education. This, he added, implies the government’s support in modernizing the facilities and expanding the Tahfidh curriculum which includes other languages and functional skills, science and technology and mathematics.

“The task force visited 136 Tahfidh centres across the country in May and August 2022. The report shows that the visit covered 33% of the centres registered with AMAANAH and there is a high social demand for Quranic education as evident in the significant number of out-of-school children enrolled in these centres,” he emphasized while noting that out of 26,027, 21,822 are male and 4199 are female.