Girl Child Education By ELIZABETH I. OLINMAH Ph.D Girl Child Education in Anioma, Delta state, Nigeria.

Girl Child Education

By

ELIZABETH I. OLINMAH Ph.D

Girl Child Education in Anioma, Delta state, Nigeria.

Preamble:

Extreme poverty, mass illiteracy, large scale ignorance, high maternal mortality and fertility rates, child wastages and lack of access to health, education and social services may sound far and fictional, but to many indigenes and visitors to Anioma, they are part and parcel of everyday life. This statement may sound exaggerated, but on closer observation, it is the truth and very real to many listening to me right now.

The world, realizing that these problems are not unique to met in September 2000, in a United Nations organized assembly and came up with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which had an eight point agenda including eradication of worse kinds of poverty, universal mass education and gender equality. The realization of the objectives of these MDGs is hinged just on one thing – Girl Child Education.

Over the years, the girl-child has been grossly neglected. She is left out in decision making, utilized at homes without due remunerations, kept as home keeper and never allowed to earn a living for herself, used by men as wife, by children as mother, by other women as house girl and by men as bed mate. She has never ever being given a chance to make her own choices. In our good land of Anioma, majority are given out in marriages long before they become women, forced to marry men they love not who sometimes are old enough to be their fathers, denied education in favour of their brothers, given out to foster parents in Egikpa, denied a chance to maximize their potentials and lately, made to enter into an unholy competition of childbirth with their husband’s other wives.

Girl child education is a sine qua none to the realization of total women empowerment and emancipation across the globe.

Girl child education explained:

Several times we have seen the acronym GCE. People have told us it meant General Certificate of Education. That, as true as it maybe, is not the whole truth. GCE actually stands for Girl Child Education. God allowed the acronym to be used for the most important examination in O’level to make sure that every where we go with the certificate, our minds and conscience will be pricking us – asking us a very simple but fundamental question ‘are we truly educating the girl child?’

Girl child education involves the formal (and sometimes informal) training of a girl child in knowledge and skills of daily living. Denial of GCE is the commonest manifestation of neglect of child education – the most retrogressive of all forms of child neglect. It refers to the inability or refusal of a system to provide the girl child opportunity for a qualitative and timely education, and is perpetrated by government, parents/guardians, teachers and the society.

The problem:

In a recent study carried out here in Anioma, of 608 adults selected and included in the study, 306 (50.32%) were males, with a Male: Female ratio of approximately 1:1. Age was not computed as more than 98% did not sure of their age. A total of 365 (60.03%) had no formal education, of which 237 (64.93%) were females. Similarly, only 44 (7.24%) had any form of tertiary education of which only 6 (13.64%) were females. Furthermore, 483 (79.44%) were either jobless, subsistent farmers or petty traders, with females making up 100% of the jobless group.

Furthermore, the study revealed that ignorant women had more children (5.05 vs 4.40), more infant and childhood deaths (1.07 vs 0.52), more pregnancy wastages or miscarriages (0.44 vs 0.43), more sick children, less contraceptive use (0.03 vs 0.17) and were less likely to immunize their children.

The survey of seven (7) primary and nursery schools in Anioma town revealed that of the three nursery schools, only one had students in both nursery one and two. The other two had students only in nursery one. Out of 147 teachers in both nursery and primary schools, 121 (82.31%) were males while only 26 (17.69%) were females. The student distribution in the eight classes from nursery 1 through primary 6 is as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Distribution of Nursery and Primary school pupils from 7 schools in Anioma town

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Class of pupil             Male    (%)                 Female  (%)  

Nursery 1ⁿ⁼¹⁶⁴              86        (52.44)             78        (47.56)

Nursery 2ⁿ⁼⁴⁰               26        (65.00)             14        (35.00)

Primary 1ⁿ⁼²⁹⁸              190      (63.76)             108      (36.24)

Primary 2ⁿ⁼³⁸⁴              217      (56.51)             167      (43.49)

Primary 3ⁿ⁼³⁰¹               173      (57.48)             128      (42.52)

Primary 4ⁿ⁼³⁶⁴              222      (60.99)             142      (39.01)

Primary 5ⁿ⁼³⁵⁰               222      (63.43)             128      (36.57)

Primary 6ⁿ⁼²⁴⁴              166      (68.03)             78        (31.97)

Totalⁿ⁼¹⁹⁴¹                     1190    (61.31)            751      (38.69)

There are only 67 students in the only girls’ vocational college with a staff population of 47 (that has a capacity of more than 500 students). In the current year, while 38 students were posted to the school for JSS 1, only two (5.26%) reported in the school. Similarly, while 74 were posted for SS1, none had reported at the time of this study.

The random sampling of 164 school aged children produced the data depicted in Table 2

Table 2: Distribution of school aged children in terms of vocation

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Age                 In School (%)      Not in School (%)

5 – 9ⁿ⁼⁸⁴           28 (33.33)                    56 (66.67)

10 – 14ⁿ⁼³⁰       21 (70.00)                      9 (30.00)

15 – 19ⁿ⁼⁵⁰       21 (42.00)                    29 (58.00)       

Total               70 (42.68)                    94 (57.32)       

Causes:

We all know for sure the common causes of this malady. But for emphasis, let me itemize the common causes in Anioma community. The list is by no means exhaustive and include

      Culture: Although Anioma community has several wonderful and enviable cultures like Cultural dance of different kinds for patients on admission, food assist to women that just delivered, there are some cultural practices that militate against girl child education. This include girl child marriages which over the years has caused several children not to go to school at all or to drop out half way, culture of Egikpa whereby a girl child is given to another family for upkeeps and training, Out Odogwu where girls (usually under-aged) are freely given to people as wives, etc.

      Poverty: Many blame girl child non-education on poverty. Although poverty has a role to play, one can comfortably say that non-girl child education is also a cause of poverty. So they are intertwined in an unholy circle causing and perpetuating each other.

      Deficiency of educational infrastructures: Absence of standard learning centers, deficiency of qualified teachers and drought of study materials have over the years prevented the few lucky girl-children, allowed to acquire formal education from obtaining the best. Majority leave school worse than when they entered.

      Fear of sexual harassment and molestation: Parents and guardians deny their girl children access to schools because of their fear of sexual molestations of all kinds. Also their lack of trust on these innocent child make them prevent them from attending such schools, since they are not sure what ‘evils’ they will get involved in.

      Child exploitation: This is a common cause for denial of girl child education in this community. It is not uncommon to see girls, who ought to be in schools hawking several wares and consumables during school hours along the roads and streets of Anioma. On Fridays, they are found in majority in the market selling for their parents and guardians. They are also seen in farms during school hours helping out their parents’ plant, weed or harvest farm produce. At home they act as nurse maids for their mothers taking care of the little ones or preparing meals for the whole family. Over the few months I have been in this town, I have only seen one boy hawking! What a travesty of justice.

      Cultural indoctrination: Many children are culturally indoctrinated and made to believe that education – western type – is not needed and thus advised to run their lives without it. Girls are made to believe that their place of fulfillment is in their husbands home and since education (to them) is not needed to marry nor make babies, they should focus just on getting the right man, accepting the parent’s choice and making such a man happy. This level of indoctrination has made all girl children focus on marrying rather than studying. Thus, even the few that are privileged to go to school cannot wait for the man to arrive and drop out of school.

Benefits of girl child education:

• Mental empowerment: Today’s girls are our sisters, friends, but tomorrow our wives and mothers. A saying puts it like this, “train a woman and you train the whole family”.  Their mental empowerment by education destroys foolishness which augments parenting, and helps impart the right kind of virtues and skills on the family. Until a woman is fully mentally empowered, she will remain a burden on her family and friends. After all, can two walk together except they be agreed? Birds of the same feather flock together. Like begets like. What we want in our children, let us therefore first put them into our girls today, since they are the teachers of our children tomorrow? Many families are having problem today, not because Satan is so powerful, but just because the wife in the home is not educated and so cannot do what the man of the house expects from her. Empowering them mentally empowers the home for exploits, expansion and greatness. Nothing should be spared in doing this.
• Physical empowerment: When our good and beautiful girls are educated, and allowed to acquire good certificates, marriage is delayed, child birth postponed and physical development enhanced. This allows for full development of the girl, proper pelvic bone maturity as well as mental maturity before the onerous task of becoming a wife and mother. Total and perfect physical development prevents challenges of childbirths and motherhood that has over the years led to the untimely deaths of our beloved sisters and wives. Education allows a girl become a woman before becoming a mother/wife, rather than the present practice where several children are given out in marriages before time, leading to children nursing children – an abomination!
•  Financial empowerment: Poverty can be seen everywhere one turns in Anioma it is seen within all age strata and in all social groups. To eradicate poverty in our beloved land, our girl-children must be properly empowered by education. Education first and foremost delays marriage and childbirths, thus somehow acting as contraceptive and limiting the total number of children a woman can have. A woman who began having children at 16 will most likely have more babies than one that started at 21. Secondly, education empowers a woman to make a living thereby providing assistance to her hard working husband towards fraying household bills and expenditures. A wife that is working and making money is any day an asset to her home! Let us stop deceiving ourselves, a man cannot provide all that a woman needs. They are there to help and can only make a maximum contribution when educated. Lets’ allow them to maximize their potentials. They are our closest and best assets.
• Spiritual empowerment: Sometimes we wonder why our wives are not hot for God, but we forget that they can neither read nor understand most of our holy books. But how can they when they are not educated and their minds not fully challenged? Education provides opportunity to understand God, the master of the universe. Uneducated minds cannot comprehend the mysteries of GOD. And a woman without GOD is a bad problem anywhere any day and any time. She cannot give what she does not have, so will most likely raise children that do not understand who GOD is. Before now, it was easy to indoctrinate such children by making learning from religious scholars mandatory, but in this era of ICT and Internets, one wonders how effective these methods are. We must equip our women to positively impart on our children spiritually. And the best and only way is through girl-child education.
•  Social empowerment: Education puts our ladies in the right position and form to associate with the right group of people, marry the right men, make the right contributions and help men develop sustainable environment. With education, they are able to maintain good personal and environmental hygiene which prevents diseases and illnesses in and around the family, dress well and represent the husbands better, cook better and more balanced meals for the family, attract the right kind of friends to the family and generally make homes more enjoyable and entertaining.
• Psychological empowerment: Education psychologically empowers people, especially women, giving them a true and proper image of themselves, boosting their self respect and making them the mothers and wives that we love. Psychologically empowered mother is able to effectively and efficiently run her home, train her children and help the community in several developmental projects. A psychologically empowered wife is the best thing that ever happened to any man, always there as a source of strength, a beckon of wisdom and a great companion; encouraging and strengthening her spouse at times of challenges and weakness, bring ideas that turn the tides of life, inspiring her spouse towards mental exploits and extraordinary performances and standing as a wall of might at all times. The worst thing that can happen to any home is to have a mother or wife who is not sure of herself, a common finding amongst illiterate women. 
• Intellectual empowerment: Although intelligent is not truly a product of education, education however, illuminates and refines intelligence. It panel beats it into useful forms and makes intelligence a resource of inestimable value. Education informs people thereby preventing deformation. And when a woman is informed, she informs her world. The destiny of nations and peoples lies in the hand of the intelligent few. Majority of exploits have over the years been wrought by educated and intelligent women. In Nigeria today, the list is inexhaustible. From NAFDAC, to Federal Ministry of Finance, from BPE, to several other parastatals and departments, the extraordinary performance of women cannot be denied.

Conclusion:

It is time to begin to do the right thing. It is time to train and educate our girls. It is time to stop the insult of poverty and dependence. It is time to stop the culture of begging by maximizing the great resource GOD gave us in women. It is time to train, train and re-train the girl child.

Although the Federal Government has promulgated a number of edits and legislations on Universal Basic Education, it is time to make these legislations effective by making our primary schools centers of learning, equipped with the right kind of resources and manpower for effective learning. Also parents must be made to understand the benefits of education through community based information dissemination techniques. The use of mass media like televisions and radios which most people do not have access to should be reduced and town criers, village based crusades and enlightenment programmes, use of religious centers and market awareness activities carried out and on regular basis.

Thank you for listening.

Reference:

1. Oleribe OEO. The concept of child abuse. An Anti-Child Abuse Society of Africa (ACASA) publication. National War College Press. Abuja, Nigeria. 2002:16-137.
2. Oleribe OEO. The fundamentals of child right. An Anti-Child Abuse Society of Africa (ACASA) publication. National War College, Abuja, Nigeria. 2002:10-110
3. Oleribe OEO. Culture and health: the effects of some Nupe culture on the health of the people. Submitted for publication.

Written by Elizabeth I. Olinma