EDUCATION OF THE GIRL CHILD

BY
UMMI BUKAR
Education has been recognized as the most important tool man has to develop his environment, and improve himself. According to the universal declaration of human rights adopted by the United Nations, education is one of the fundamental human rights; every child regardless of gender has a right to. However, United Nation statistics and other reports repeatedly show that girls have lower literacy rates than boys. There are over sixty five million girls around the world that are not in schools, a large percentage of this figure is from West Africa. It is said that educating the girl child is tantamount to educating the nation but in Nigeria, it is apparent that the education of the girl child is not given as much attention as it requires.
The situation is indeed alarming, as a visit to many schools in rural areas indicate complete absence of female students. There is clearly a yawning gap between male and female education in Nigeria that needs to be looked into. There is a seeming absence of policies that specifically attend to gender issues thereby leaving room for the gender gap. Despite the Universal Basic Education (UBE), launched by the Nigerian government; the number of girls in school is abysmally low. Survey carried indicates that many states are still very much below the required standard in terms of girl-child education. Forms of discrimination against the girl child across the Nigeria are numerous and vary depending on the region and culture of the area. Girls in some parts of the country are given away in marriage at a very tender age, in effect putting an end to any hope of acquiring formal education as well as exposing them to health risks and other psychological problems.
In other areas, girls are trafficked as prostitutes, at an early age. The girl-child is also a subject of abuse and exploitation by some parents or guardians. They are removed from schools to be engaged in economic activities like street hawking where they are likely to face abuse and molestation. Because they are preferable as house helps, girls can be found all over the country working as house girls, and are made to work throughout the day and often badly treated by their masters and mistresses. It is distressing that these conditions do not improve as girls grow into womanhood. Women in the country also lack the capacity to compete and benefit maximally from development opportunities due to cultural and traditional discrimination against them. This is evident as the advocated thirty five percent representation of women in government is still yet to be achieved in the country, and statistics indicates that seventy percent of people living below the poverty line are women.
Women, if given the opportunity, are endowed with the potential which could be used to develop the society if given the opportunity as they can contribute to their family income as well as becoming better mothers. Educating the girl child would help to reduce dependency and to a large extent help lift families out of poverty. States that have put in place laws which prohibits the withdrawal of children from school should be commended. What should follow is to ensure that any parent that withdraws his child from school with the intention of marrying her off or battering her for any purpose should be sanctioned. Parents, teachers, philanthropists, NGO’s, traditional as well as religious leaders should assist the government in encouraging the enrolment, retention and completion of the girl child in school, as this will contribute immensely in the attainment of two of the Millennium Development Goals ,MDG which are achieving universal basic education and elimination of gender disparities in education at all levels.

Source: Recorded live fro FRCN daily commentary