Education for all: Victoria lecturer to build school in his home country

Aboubakar Idriss, fifth from the left, meets with a group of students in Malaysia, where he earned his post-secondary degree after graduating from high school in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Submitted

Victoria-based education leader Aboubakar Idriss announced last October that he was diverting the revenue from his Youtube channel and dedicating it towards his dream of building a school in Chad, his home country.

This year, he’s planning to make that dream a reality.

“I want to give back. I want to do something, because I am one of the few lucky ones who managed to further their education,” said Idriss, who comes from a Daza-speaking tribe in the Kanem region of Chad. “I hope to let people know that regardless of the resources you have, or who you are, where you come from: you can always make a difference.”

Next month, Idriss is flying to N'Djamena, the nation’s capital, to finalize the land purchase for the school. He is hoping to eventually provide free education for boys and girls in the area all the way up to high school, but this year, he’s focusing on kindergarten to Grade 5.

Construction on the elementary school is expected to begin this July and finish in time for the start of the school year in September 2024. The initiative has the support of Chad’s Ministry of Education, which has helped speed up the process.

A slew of humanitarian crises and refugees in the region from the nearby countries of Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Nigeria have created additional pressure on one of the world’s most underdeveloped educational systems, according to UNICEF. In addition, the country is restructuring its national debt and deployed the military to quell protests in response to a turbulent government transition. Chad also has one of the youngest mortality rates in the world.

“When you have challenges like that, education is not a priority,” Idriss said. “Whatever we build will definitely be better than what’s there right now.”

Idriss, an educational consultant and a lecturer at Victoria-based Sprott Shaw College, is most well-known for his efforts to democratise education over the internet: Idriss has an audience of 680,000 subscribers on Youtube.

He's a household name for Arabic-speaking newcomers in Victoria.

“Almost everyone who speaks Arabic and comes to Victoria would know me before they arrive,” said Idriss. “When they research moving to Victoria, they will find my content.”

It began simply as a blog for family and friends who wanted to know about how he managed to earn his post-secondary education. But almost two decades later, Idriss’s internet presence has evolved into an authoritative online voice on higher-education opportunities, scholarships, learning English and fighting for education rights. And he posts the occasional vlog (video blog) about life in Victoria. Last year, the channel provided over 3,000 scholarships through a collaboration with University of the People, a US-based online university.

His push to build a school in Chad is an extension of his belief in education, which he called the key to financial and intellectual freedom.

“I wanted to do something physically there, for the ones who don’t have internet access, for the ones who don’t watch my content, for the ones who don’t even have a mobile phone to check Twitter or Youtube or Facebook,” Idriss said.

Idriss is planning for his future school to be located at a pedestrian-friendly location in one of N'Djamena’s poorer neighbourhoods.

“If I build the school in an area where it's middle class, rich people and government folks will send their kids there. That’s not what I want,” Idriss said. “I want the poor and needy, the ones who currently don’t go to school, [who] currently can’t afford to go.”

Idriss is doing this all on his own, and is refusing any monetary donations due to his personal and cultural beliefs. But he is open to cooperating with others who would be willing to provide in-kind services or goods, such as furniture donations for the school.

In Chad, land and labour is cheap. Building regulations aren’t as strict as they are here, Idriss said.

But he does want the curriculum to be world-class: Idriss is planning to use the BC educational curriculum for the school, as Chad currently does not have a national curriculum system. “I do believe the education system in Canada is the best,” he said.

Idriss’s ultimate goal is to build a university in Chad.

“And I know I will, one day,” he said. “But with everything, you always need to take the first steps.”

Correction: This article was updated on Feb. 6 with an additional comment from Aboubakar Idriss clarifying that the school will be for boys and girls and is expected to open in September 2024, rather than September 2023.