About the Yan Taru

In the sixteenth century, there is evidence that a learning association for women existed. The teachers were called Yan Taru, a Hausa appellation which literally means: “those who have come together” or “the collective”. The lead teachers therein were known as Jajis, in Hausa it means ‘the leader of a caravan’, but this simply referred to the leader status of women. Three centuries later, at the request of the Caliph Muhammad Bello, her brother, Sayyida Nana Asmau, a scholar, poet and teacher systematized the Yan Taru for the benefit of women and children.