My critical reflection will be drawn from an experience I had just a year after my graduation from the university where I was appointed as one of the X-students to lead a student cultural week in my village with the theme "raising awareness on education". At the university, I was a member of my association in which students from my tribe generally come together to promote unity and encourage others in education. My role was to present a discourse on girl child education all the entire villagers who were gathered at the village square that evening. A high dropout rate at school and illiteracy are major problems in my region, in which there is still a great deal of gender disparity when it comes to educating children, especially the girl child. This programme is in line with the government's policy of promoting education in my country, whose priority is for education to reach the grass-roots communities.
In Nigeria, as in most African countries, girls' school attendance is low, as records have shown that fewer girls go to school than boys. Despite the provisions of the Universal Basic Education Act and the Child Rights Act aimed at ensuring the right to education for all children, the girl-child continues to lag behind in the education system. Research shows majority of them drop out for various reasons before completion of basic education. Consequently, they cannot raise their socio-economic standard and therefore cannot contribute to nation building. Why has the situation persisted despite efforts by governments, international organizations and NGOs to boost female education over the years? It appears the real issues have not been appropriately addressed. One area that seems to have not been well explored is the issue of gender stereotypes. This paper therefore examines how stereotypic beliefs against female gender can affect the girls-child's attitude toward education and educational aspirations. It considers attitude as significant because attitudes determine behaviour, which in turn combine to affect girls' access to education. Gender stereotypes in the paper refer to socio-cultural beliefs and practices, which tend to limit the girl-child's rights to education. The paper starts with a review of gender role development in African society. It discusses the patriarchal nature of African society and the Nigerian perceptions regarding the girl-child. It reviews some examples of commonly held stereotypic beliefs that pose threat to female gender and presents concern on the plight of the African girl-child who is caught up in the struggle for self-determination and the patriarchal system, which seems to limit her rights and expectations of herself. The paper argues that such a system increases the burden of the developmental tasks for the girl-child thereby causing a setback to her development. A nation that endangers the development of a critical segment of its own population puts itself at risk. The paper further argues that until we address the challenge of gender stereotyping and the impact it imposes on the girl-child, the mere provision of laws, conventions, charters, as the panacea, though laudable, remains futile. To this end, the paper considers how ODL can be used as a strategy to counteract the impact of gender stereotypes and socio-cultural beliefs that pose threat to female gender thereby increasing girls' access to education. // Paper ID: 19
Education is based on which the development of a nation is rested. For the qualitative development of education all the modern countries are initiating steps. The developing countries like India are far behind providing the qualitative education to its children. India has initiated a much hiked educational policy to make educated each and everyone by SSA policy earmarked a total budget of 2 lakh crore in a decade,. The paper has analyzed how the SSA has suffered a failure due to the defective implementation of the policy by the government officials.
A journal article on the importance of girl-child education in the national development of Nigeria. ; The importance of girl-child education to the development of any nation cannot he overemphasised. There is a saying that "if we educate a boy, we educate one person, hut if we educate a girl, we educate a family and a nation". In many parts of the Africa, particularly in Nigeria, the girl-child face significant obstacles in accessing proper education, there is a serious gap between the boy-child education and that of girl-child due to inherent societal values placed on the boy-child over the girl-child. The girl-child has her destiny sealed by both tradition and culture on account of biological sex. There is also a seeming absence of policies that are specifically geared to attending to gender issues with obvious room for gender gap. It is on the basis of this that this paper examined issues in girl-child education in Nigeria and its implications on the development of the country. Peculiar issues such as access to education, school retention and drop out, equity as well as quality of education were closely examined vis-a-vis the implication on national development. The paper also proffered solutions to eradicating the problems facing girl-child education in Nigeria in order to achieve meaningful development. The paper concluded that education is the right of every girl-child, a key to transforming her life and making her a responsible member of the society. Therefore, the government should not only provide adequate policies to meet this yearning need, but also ensure that these policies are fully implemented.
In Sierra Leone, the enrollment of girls in schools has always been lower than that of their male counterparts. Girl-child education has therefore become a more sensitive social concern and the Forum for Africa Women Educationalists (FAWE) is one of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) helping the Government to increase the enrollment and retention of girls in schools. The study therefore investigates the potentials of FAWE in enhancing Girl-child education in Tikonko Chiefdom. The study was descriptive and made use of 40(80%) respondents as sample including 10 teachers, 10 administrators and 20 parents. Questionnaires were developed, pretested for validity and reliability and then used to collect data. Data analysis was done using frequencies and percentages. According to the findings, FAWE is providing formal education as well as vocational and technical skills training for girls in the study area. Apart from the provision of education, FAWE has the potential of enhancing girl-child education through the increase of enrollment of girls and raising of awareness about girl-child education. Teenage pregnancy, inadequate trained and qualified teachers and inadequate teaching and learning materials are among the problems encountered by FAWE. Community sensitization, provision of adequate teaching and learning materials and the employment of trained and qualified teachers are among the solutions to the problems encountered by FAWE in Tikonko. The main conclusions of the study were that FAWE has a great potential in enhancing Girl-Child Education with special focus on sensitizing the community about Girl-Child Education and reducing dropout rate of girls from formal school system. Meanwhile, it is recommended that FAWE, assisted by the Government should create opportunities for Primary and Senior Secondary Schools education, provide adequate teaching and learning materials and also employ trained and qualified teachers.
In realization of the importance of the girl child, concerted efforts were mounted by the Governments at various levels to improve girls participation in education and redress the gender inequalities in education enrolment and retention. Therefore, the study was undertaken to analyze the psychological and institutional barriers that hinders girl child education at secondary level in Kohima district of Nagaland. The research design adopted for this study was descriptive survey research. The self developed tool used for the study was a closed form of questionnaire on barriers to girls schooling at secondary level where the girls have to either tick yes or no. The instrument was validated by ten experts in Faculty of Education and the same was administered to 500 girl students. In Kohima, there are five EBRCs (Educational Block Resource Centres) and from each EBRC, 100 students from secondary level were selected randomly both from private and government schools. The data collected were analyzed and interpreted in the light of the objective of the study by using percentage analysis. The study reveals that most of the girls feel safe, comfortable and secure to go to school. They also said that there is no gender discrimination and they prefer to study in co-educational institution. The study also reveals that most of the schools have the facilities that are necessary for running a school efficiently and effectively. The study concluded that most of the girls in Kohima do not face barriers in getting education. However, there are few girls who have negative attitude towards education and their school which might be due to cultural beliefs and practices, poverty, poor academic performance, etc. which are quite negligible when compare with the barriers faced by girls in some other communities.
Adebisi G. L.,Oyebode L. A. and Balogun O. T.Department of Agricultural Extension and Management, Federal College of Animal Health andProduction Technology, Oyo state.College of Agriculture Food Science and Technology, Wesley University of Science and Technology,Ondo, Ondo state.Department Of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, University of Ibadan.abiodunoyebode @gmail.com. AbstractThis study examined perception of rural dwellers on girl-child education in Saki East local government area of Oyo state. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select the respondents, resulting in a total number of 120 household heads used for this study. Primary data on the perception of rural dwellers on girl-child education was collected using interview schedule and were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results reveal that majority (75.8%) of the respondents were male, within 41-50 years of age and were aware of girl-child education through the use of the radio (81.7%). Further results show that majority (85.0%) of the respondents had favorable perception of girl-child education. Chi-square analysis of the result shows that there was a significant relationship between the level of education of the respondents (?2= 4.379, p = 0.002), awareness on girl-child education (?2 =5.441, p = 0.020) and their perception of girl-child education. Further results of correlation analysisrevealed that there existed a correlation between income (r = -0.592, p= 0.000), the constraints facing rural dwellers on girls' education (r = -0.465, p = 0.000) and their perception on girl-child education. Based on these findings, the study recommended that adult literacy should be encouraged and the cost of acquiring formal education should be subsidized.
Based on a field survey conducted in five districts of Bihar and involving 1,119 respondents, this article examines the role of schemes initiated by the Bihar Government to achieve a dramatic transformation in female literacy. It argues that the schemes, though successful in taking care of economic factors that act as hurdles in the enrolment and retention of girls in schools, suffer limitations in their implementation and also overlook the importance of other factors that impact the girl child's education, especially at the school level. At the same time, though there is an overemphasis on increasing the number of learners, the issue of quality in education has been grossly neglected. The article concludes that, in the long run, neglecting school-related factors and the quality of education defeats the real purpose of the schemes. Based on the study, some recommendations are also offered to manage the quantity–quality equilibrium in relation to girl child education.
Education is fundamental to poverty reduction and it equips individuals to contribute immensely to the socio-economic development of society. However, studies have revealed a wide gap in gender enrolment in primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon inclusive caused by gender issues and socio-cultural beliefs among other practices, as well as deeper forces that extend beyond the boundaries of educational systems. This study therefore investigated the trends in girl-child participation in primary education in Nigeria and Cameroon and the causes of disparity. The study adopted descriptive survey design using the ex-post facto method. Two research questions and two hypotheses were raised in the study. The instruments used for this study were the Parent's Questionnaire on Girl-Child Participation in Primary Education (PQGPPE) and Questionnaire for Street Girls of Primary School Age (QSGPSA). Data collected were analysed using chi-square, T-test and descriptive statistics. There is high perception of parents in Nigeria and Cameroon (Nigeria; Weighted Average = 2.79, Cameroon; weighted Average= 2.94). There is no significant difference in the responses of street girls and parents on factors militating against girl-child education. Hence, hypotheses 2a and 2b are accepted. T-test comparison of Girl-Child Enrolment shows that the girls' enrolment in Cameroon is higher ( = 45.6) than that of Nigeria ( = 40.7) at (t = 12.33; df =30; p <.05). Girl-child participation in primary education in both countries is not encouraging and socio-cultural and economic factors are predominant causes hindering their accessibility. Therefore, cultural practices like early marriage, preference for boy-child education, among others should be discouraged by governments of both countries.
