•A peep into the world of students at the Married Women Secondary School, Bauchi 

FROM PAUL ORUDE, BAUCHI

She is 60 years old, but Mrs. Hannatu Ishaku is not ashamed to wear her school uniform to school every day. The mother of seven children and four grand children is schooling at the Married Women Secondary School at Wayan Makarfi area of Bauchi metropolis.

The SSSI student is usually seen at school with students young enough to be her children or even grandchildren but she is not perturbed. Hajia Hauwa Husseini who was once a Principal of the school disclosed that it was established by the Governor Isa Yuguda administration in 2008 as part of the efforts to encourage married women to acquire western education.

“The establishment of the school was initiated by the First lady, Hajia Aisha Isa Yuguda, who sold the idea to her husband due to her worry about women getting married without completing their secondary education,” she informed. “The First Lady believes that these women should be given the second chance to get quality education in order to be useful to themselves and the society. We have six of the schools in the state and they are located in Bauchi, Misau, Azare, Jamare, Ningi and Dass Local Government Areas.




The Married Women Secondary School at Wayan Makrfi, was established in November 2008. “On the first day of resumption in our centre here, we had only three students but, as at today, we have over 300 students in JSS 1 to SSS 3,” she disclosed.

One of them is Mrs. Hannatu Ishaku who is, today, living out her dreams of acquiring western education, her age notwithstanding. She mingles easily with the students, most of whom are nursing mothers.

The elderly woman’s love for western education is inspiring to younger students and teachers. According to her story, growing up as a little girl at Tafawa Balewa in Bauchi State, Ishaku said her parents did not send her to school. “It is one of those things I look back in life and regret,” she said. As a teenager, she was married off.

FILLING A VOID

But as time went by, she became more aware of a void in her life that needed to be filled. “I soon realised I wanted to be able to read and write,” she recalled. “I discovered that my age-mates who went to school were working and doing fine. I decided that I must go to school because education will help me.”

Buoyed up by this desire, Ishaku explained her feelings to her husband who gave her his unalloyed support. On learning about a school in the state capital, that catered solely for married women, she immediately went there and registered for studies.

She was about 60 when she started off in Junior Secondary 1. By this time, her five children had all graduated from the university. “I had to learn how to read and write 123 and ABC,” she told Education Review.

She recalled that the first day she put on her blue school uniform, together with white socks and sandals to go to school, her children and grandchildren could not help laughing.

“I couldn’t help laughing too,” she remarked. Now in Junior Secondary 3, Hannatu is happy that she can read and write. She is usually dropped at school by her husband in the morning. These days, she even helps her grandchildren with their homework and she’s really happy about it. Already, she has started thinking of the future as she confided in Education Review that she would like to acquire tertiary education. “Maybe a National Diploma but if I can get a degree, why not,” she said with some twinkle in her eyes.

Ishaku is the only Christian student in the school but she confessed that her relationship with Muslim students is excellent. She had never felt out of place, she claimed.

At the school, the criteria used in admitting the students is simple: first, you obtain a form and fill it. Among the information you are expected to supply is the last class you attained before marriage and the one you want to go to. After that you are interviewed and fixed in the appropriate class, depending on your performance at the oral interview.

COPING WITH HOME AND STUDIES

Like Ishaku, Bilkisu Ayuba Aliyu, 43-year-old JSS 111 student of the school, has similar story of not being educated by her parents as a girl. The mother of three kids said she became worried any time her children came back from school and she was unable to help them with their homework.

“Then one day I decided to go to school and when I told my husband, he supported the idea fully,” she recalled. “I failed English a lot initially but now I am improving. I am happy that I am now conversant with Math, English and a few other subjects. It was not easy from the start because I didn’t have good foundation. It was tough but I was not discouraged.”

Bilkisu’s children are aged 22, 12 and 8 respectively. To balance the call of studies and family, she usually wakes up at four in the morning to start preparing for each day. “I prepare bath and breakfast and when the children had all gone to school then I settle down with my husband. Before 8 (o’clock) both of us are out of the house,” she reported.

Bilkisu is, however, unhappy with the absence of toilet in the school, making the students to resort to going to neighbouring houses to take care of their toilet needs. “I want to use this opportunity to beg the management to build toilets for us. Even the teachers don’t have offices, hence they sit outside.”

NURSING A DREAM

Maimunatu Shehu, 35, in SSS III, hopes to further her education if she successfully passes the senior school certificate examinations coming up later this year. “I want to be a nurse,” she said while holding tenderly her eight-months-old daughter, Aminatu. She said she completed her primary school ten years ago before getting married. But once she had her first child, it became difficult for her to continue her education. Her desire to go to secondary school was fully supported by her husband who accompanied her during registration in her current school.

Maimunatu who is a science student at the Married Women Secondary School said she enrolled at the school after failing her O levels at the Government Secondary School, Nabordo, Bauchi State. On how she copes with her studies and taking care of her baby, she said the determination to succeed is what keeps her going.

“When she is hungry or starts crying I would excuse myself and go outside to take care of her. Luckily for me, she is a good child. Once I feed her, she sleeps off. As for me, I have never dozed off in class even for once since I started.” Maimunatu has a 12-year-old daughter who is in afternoon session. “Before I get home she has prepared food.”

According to Hajia Husseini, the school has a daycare run by nannies. When students who are nursing mothers come in the morning, they drop their babies with them. “During break they go to the daycare to breast-feed them and at the closing hour they take their children home. We also have a donor agency that provides medical services to the kids and mothers whenever they are sick.”

In spite of this arrangement, many of the students were seen in the classroom with their kids, some of who were sleeping on the floor inside the class, while others were seen being fed by their mothers. One such nursing mother student is Fauziya Tanimu, 20, who has a one-year old child, Abubakar Sadiq.

MOTIVATED TO GO TO SCHOOL BY A NEIGHBOUR

A JSS 1 student, Fauziya said she was motivated to go to school after she heard her fellow Hausa neighbour speak fairly good English. “I have always wanted to speak English. When I heard her speak, I asked her how she learnt the language and she told me about the school. I told my husband when he came home that I would like to go to school and learn how to communicate in English. He was happy and encouraged me. Now my English speaking is improving.”

Fauziya is, however, not comfortable with sitting on the floor to learn. Junior students do not have desks in their classroom. Only the senior ones do.

“I don’t enjoy sitting on the floor to learn at all,” she told Education Review. “There was a time all our mats were stolen and we had to sit on the bare floor for some time before they could replace them with new ones.”

Ayuba Mahmud, Chairman of the school management committee, said that his first contact with the school was when he brought his wife to register for skills acquisition training. He added that the school then had a population of 156 students and several teachers posted by the state government.

“I found the school dilapidated and when we came for meeting we discussed how we could improve the situation. But the community where the school is cited is not cooperating at all with the school management.” Ayuba said that besides the absence of toilets for female students, the environment is dirty because some of the people in the community have turned some part of the premises into a dump site for wastes.

“They use the school as a dump site and their children come here to smoke Indian hemp in one of the buildings which used to serve as a laboratory,” he lamented.

It was learnt that the school used to be a secondary school but government has to close it down after the students went on rampage, and destroyed, in the process, the facilities. Ayuba commended the teachers’ commitment, noting that under the circumstances the teachers are doing their level best.

IN SEARCH OF SPOUSES’ SUPPORT

Hajia Husseini sees the attitude of the students’ husbands as another problem that needs to be quickly addressed in order to achieve the set objectives. “The main challenge is from their husbands because we are not getting enough cooperation and support from them in the sense that if they have little misunderstanding with their wives at home, they would use that as an excuse to stop them from coming to school and you know this will affect their education. So we normally refer the issues to Husbands/Parents Teachers Association to intervene and settle the problem for them so that the woman can be allowed to come to school.”

She commended the women, adding that “their attendance and commitment is, in itself, an achievement because it is not easy for a married woman to leave her husband and children to come to school especially in this part of the country but due to their determination, they have been able to do that.

“To get this women out of their homes, at the initial stage, was very difficult. We embarked on a lot of sensitization before their husbands could allow their enrolment, so retaining them in the school is an achievement because many came thinking they will not cope. But to combine housework and schoolwork was difficult for some of them. This made them to abandon school to go back home to continue with their housewives’ work.”

The former principal said that state government takes care of the teachers who are posted from Ministry of Education. All the textbooks and written materials are supplied by the government, and the students do not pay school fees, she revealed.

“I am very grateful for this opportunity to go back to school again,” Ishaku said. “I will encourage married women who are willing to take the chance. I will plead with their husbands to please support their wives because it is really good.”

SOURCE:
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=114509

Change has really come to stay :-) :/

liveyourlife:
Change has really come to stay :-) :/

Yeah!

Better late than never.

May God bless Hajia Aisha Isa Yuguda for this idea.

Tattooboy:
May God bless Hajia Aisha Isa Yuguda for this idea.

Amen