ICT and Library in the Teaching of Arabic and Islamic Studies

Abstract

The teaching of Islamic studies in Nigeria started in houses of Islamic scholars where verses of the Qur’an were learnt only by rote. An Islamic Scholar read verses of the Qur’an while his pupils repeat after him thereby memorizing them. Islamic education was introduced into Northern Nigeria about the 14th century and its aim was to enable pupils memorize the Qur’an and be able to reci te it (Fayose,1995). When an Islamic scholar is satisfied with his pupils in memorizing the verses of the Qur’an they then move to identification of alphabets with their respective sounds, then to formation of syllables with vowels, and then writing (Enoh, 1987). The nex t stage in Islamic education is to understand the meaning of the Qur’an memorized by the pupils. This is done by translating the Qur’an to them. At this level of translating the Qur’an, other subjects of instruction are included in the pup ils’ training, such as hadith, fiqh , Arabic literature; comprising of Arabic grammar , poetry and rhetoric etc. Western education was not included in the subjects taught during these stages of Islamic education because it was thought it would lower the standard of Arabic and Islamic studies. According to Umar (2000) Islamic education began to witness tremendous growth between 1976 and 1996 from sitting on mats in houses to benches at modern Islamicschools. Islamic schools were established to teach Arabic a nd Islamic studies alongside western education subjects. These periods, at the beginning, helped to change Muslims’ long existing negative attitude towards western education particularly when available manpower could not fully utilize the employment opport unities created by the petroleum boom and during the implementation of the new national policy on education in 1976 when the Federal Government Introduced compulsory and free universal primary education (UPE), then in 1996 when government call ed for privat e sector, communities an d non - governmental organisation s ’ participation in the educational system. Some of the Islamic schools established at these periods were Arabic Teachers’ College, Jos, 1976; Al - Iman International Schools, Jos, 1982; College of Islam ic Studies, Bauchi Road, Jos, 1986; Taoheed Private Schools, Old ICT and Library in the Teaching of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3 Airport Road, Jos, 1983; Al - Hilal secondary school, Rikkos, Jos, 1996 etc. The Arabic and Islamic teacher armed with the knowledge acquired from both formal and informal education impact it on his pupils and students. His tools of continuous reference in the process of teaching are personally possessed books. ICT age library resources are not available to the Arabic and Islamic teacher to demonstrate and update lessons. A survey of some schoo ls in Plateau state teaching Arabic and Islamic studies shows that books on the subj ects are either kept in offices or where there exists a library there is no sensitization on the use of these materials by both teachers and pupils or students.