Professor Muhammad Ibrahim is the Director/CEO of Nigerian Arabic Village, Ngala in Borno State. In this interview, he spoke on activities of the village and more.
What is the Arabic Village all about?
The village is an institution and inter-university centre established by the federal government in 1991. Firstly, it offers language immersion courses to degree students in over 28 universities in Nigeria. It is mandatory for Level 3 Arabic Language students to study the one-year immersion courses. They will be examined at the end of the programmes in line with the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) of the National Universities Commission (NUC).
We teach them through physical interactions with native Arabs by sending them to markets where Arabic language is spoken so that they will learn the culture of the Arabs.
The best way to learn a language is to send someone to the natives where the language is fluently spoken. The accent will be perfect and the students will pronounce words properly in addition to confidence building.
Let me take you back a bit; in the 70s and 80s when our economy was sound and the number of Arabic students was not much, government-sponsored students to Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia to interact with the Arabs during holidays.
Today, we have over 28 universities offering Arabic to about 8,000 students, and it is difficult for the government to sponsor all of them to Arab countries. That was why the village was established and the immersion programmes installed.
What other programmes are offered in the village?
We have acculturation programmes meant for students of over 60 colleges of education. So far, I have visited 14 universities and 40 colleges of education. The acculturation courses are intensive but not as all-encompassing as the immersion courses. We expose these students to Arab culture just like the university students but they spend six months with us instead.
We recently met with the executive secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) and addressed some of the problems with the acculturation courses and all the colleges were referred to the village.
It is mandatory for students to attend the courses because without acquiring the certificate of the village, NCE graduates will not be offered jobs. Part of the acculturation is to teach students how to teach Arabic at all levels
We also offer diplomas in Arabic where students spend two years in the village and after graduation, they can use the certificates to pursue degree programmes. The University of Maiduguri has agreed to offer degree courses to our diploma graduates.
The village offers special Arabic courses meant for security operatives, military, para-military and diplomats sent to Arab countries.
We try to modify the courses to suit the needs of the students because not all the diplomats, for example, are sent to the same country and Arabs have different dialects. We have the classical Arabic course which binds all the Arabs together. So, if a diplomat is posted to Saudi Arabia for example, we organise a separate lesson for him in addition to the classical Arabic.
There is a course on proficiency for beginners, intermediate and advanced students. Another course is being designed for students who want to go beyond the advanced course.
The village also offers community service courses and communities that want us to teach them Arabic will be required to provide the required learning environment before we go there.
We are not teaching the Quran or Islamic studies, rather we are only teaching Arabic language so we intend to start teaching out-of-school kids, tsangaya teachers as well as intending pilgrims. The village is arranging teaching programmes for Arabic teachers in the junior secondary and primary schools in our host community using modern methods.
Arabic is a language of trade and business so merchants who travel to the Middle East to do business are advised to learn Arabic, including those into the oil and gas sector; our Igbo brothers who venture into buying and selling and our Christian brothers who go on pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan can also learn Arabic to better interact with the people there.
How do you obtain resource materials and other teaching aids?
As you know, we have been displaced by insurgency and all our facilities at Ngala that catered for 13,000 students were destroyed. We have a unit that handles quality assurance, accreditation and development of curriculum and resource materials. But to be honest, we cannot do all these things due to lack of space.
However, we review the curriculum of schools and we have an input on the higher institution curriculum reviewed by the NUC, NCCE and National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS).
We are looking forward to the generous intervention of the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, who is very much aware of the problems we are facing and will report the matter to the presidency to get the village back on its feet soon.
Governor Babagana Umara Zulum is also willing to assist in reviving the village, especially with the ICESCO partnership. The body will soon come for inspection and more facilities need to be in place.
Do you benefit from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) interventions?
The village, alongside a few others, including the French Language Village which was listed among the beneficiaries of TETFund, was delisted some years back. We are appealing to the government to revisit the decision and reenlist the village among the beneficiaries of the fund.
What does a person stand to benefit after attending courses at the village?
Apart from proficiency, they will learn the culture, history and dialects of the Arabs and their communication and interaction with the Arabs will improve.
The Holy Bible is also written in Arabic, so if a Christian learns Arabic he can read it in Arabic and communicate in Arabic in the holy land. We teach language here not religion.
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