Listen to this articleKANO, Nigeria: For over a decade, Government Girls’ Secondary School (GGSS), Tsakuwa, has struggled with a shortage of teachers and teaching equipment. Despite their pleas to local and state authorities, the school remained in a state of neglect. But the people of Tsakuwa – a community in Kano, northwest Nigeria, refused to give up on the education of their children. Through a community development organisation known as Tsakuwa Mu Farka, the community members stepped in to fill the funding gaps themselves.
Tsakuwa Mu Farka, which translates to ‘Tsakuwa, Let’s Wake Up,’ was established in 2021. Born out of a passion for the educational transformation of the community, the organisation made its first stride by hiring 16 staff members at a monthly salary of ₦10,000 despite the challenges posed by limited funding, “because our children often go to school to meet no teacher,” Abdullahi Yusuf, the founder, told The SolutionsPaper.
In the past, Yusuf recalls that, “the school, which has about 800 students, had only 8 permanent teachers. With no basic teaching infrastructure like chairs, students sit on the floor.”
Tsakuwa Mu Farka continued to expand its commitment to improving the education system in Tsakuwa, recruiting an additional 10 staff members this year. With these new hires, the number of regular teaching staff at GGSS Tsakuwa increased to 34, marking a significant increase from the initial 8 government-appointed staff.
Driven by a sense of giving back, Hamisu, one of the recruits, said he decided to accept the job offer not because of the salary attached, but because he felt an obligation to reciprocate the generosity he had once received. He noted that during his teacher training program, he had received sponsorship from Tsakuwa Mu Farka, which provided him with the opportunity to pursue his professional development.
Now, as a qualified teacher, he is eager to pay it forward and contribute to the educational landscape of his hometown by joining the GGSS Tsakuwa staff.
‘We contacted the government but it was unsuccessful’
Yusuf, the founder of Tsakuwa Mu Farka, has been on a mission to reform the education system in the community, however, the path to progress has been a rocky one. Despite their persistence in calling on the government of Kano to intervene, it has continued to fall on deaf ears, leaving them frustrated and disheartened.
According to Yusuf, their organisation is relying on its internal savings to pay the stipends of its hired staff, “oftentimes, the donor too do not donate,” he said. “In times like that we’d have to seek contributions from the people in the community. Sometimes we have to talk to one of our [organisation] members and tell them that this month you will pay one or two teachers from your pocket.”
“We can’t fully express our frustration,” Salisu Idris, a community member, noted. “But we’re calling on the authorities concerned to look into this matter for the betterment of our wards and the state as a whole.
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Education is unarguably essential in the modern world; that’s the reason why we’re contributing the little we’ve got to pay these teachers that teach our children, but we’re not government and we’re not rich. In the long run, we will exhaust ourselves,” Idris added.
Credits
Editing: Zubaida Baba Ibrahim
Abdulaziz Bagwai is a registered community health practitioner, a creative writer, and an early-career multimedia journalist. His writings have appeared and are forthcoming in different local and international publications.
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