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GIRL-CHILD EDUCATION: NIGERIA RANKS
AMONG TOUGHEST COUNTRIES – SURVEY
By
Lovins Yakubu
Monday,
16 October, 2017
The
country Director of ONE Campaign (a non-governmental organization) Serah Makka
Ugbabe has disclosed that Nigeria is ranked 27th in the world on the
index of the toughest places for a girl-child to be well educated. The Director
made this revelation recently in Abuja even as Nigeria joined the rest of the
world last week to mark the International Day of the Girl-Child 2017. Ugbabe said
that 52 percent of girls in North East have never been to school, making the
region the toughest for girls education in Nigeria adding that President Muhammadu
Buhari has recently acknowledge the depth of the problem and the Ministry of
Education has developed the 2016-2019 ministerial strategic plan towards that.
According
to ONE’s research, the top 10 toughest places for a girl to get an education
are South Sudan, Central African Republic, Niger, Afghanistan, Chad, Mali,
Guinea, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Ethiopia based on factors which included,
female literacy rate and rate of out-of-school girls, stressing that all the
countries mentioned are fragile states and nine of the ten are in Africa.
According
to the Director, “Nigeria is ranked 27th on ONE’s index of the toughest
places for a girl to get an education, a ranking that underscores the need for
action to ensure that every girl in Nigeria gets an education with particular
attention to the regional differences highlighted by the report. Education is
in crisis in Nigeria. Unfortunately, it is not a crisis that many can see
immediately that is what makes addressing it so hard. It is a crisis
nonetheless. 52% of girls in North East Nigeria have never been to school,
making it the toughest region for girls’ education in Nigeria. In comparison,
only 5% of girls in the South South geopolitical zone have never been to
school. For those who are in school, what are the learning outcome? Are we
actually training the future of Nigeria for the 21st century”?
She
added that her organization is launching “The Toughest Places for a Girl to Get
an Education” index which highlights the unique challenges faced by girls in
the poorest countries.
Ugbabe
further stressed that the outcome of the survey is a reflection of the urgency
of the problem facing Africa’s most populous nation with a population that is
set to be about four hundred million people by 2050 adding that educating
Nigeria’s girls becomes crucial to the country so as to reap from the potential
benefits of its population boom.
Earlier in her welcome remarks at the occasion,
the Director-General of the National Centre for Women Development, Barrister
Mary Ekpere Eta said the girl child in Nigeria has continued to face challenges
and condemned the use of girl child as sex slaves, baby making factories, early
and forced marriage resulting to VVF among others.
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