Educating the girl-child a collective responsibility
An ageless adage says, “If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family (nation).” This is a fact that the worst of pessimists would not deny. Contrary to popular belief in Nigeria that the girl-child illiteracy syndrome is prevalent in the north, it is pertinent […]
An ageless adage says, “If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family (nation).”
This is a fact that the worst of pessimists would not deny. Contrary to popular belief in Nigeria that the girl-child illiteracy syndrome is prevalent in the north, it is pertinent to note that this is a Nigerian problem, and by extension, a problem the world over.
While poverty is identified to be a leading cause of illiteracy, ironically, illiteracy is the root cause of poverty in most third world/developing countries.
In most rural homes, the girl-child is also a family’s bread winner at a very early age.
Malam Nura Mohammed, who owns a shop in one of the villages in Kaduna, confirmed that his daughters made more profit every day from hawking because people were more attracted to females who sold than to the male children.
When asked about his male children, he proudly said in Hausa, “Sun tafi makaranta” meaning, “They have gone to school.”
He quickly added that the boys needed the free education offered by the Kaduna State government more than the girls because the girls would soon be married off and become their husbands’ responsibility. This reasoning has been accepted not only amongst illiterates from the rural areas, but also by some educated people in the urban areas.
Unfortunately, most girls’ dreams of finishing school and getting married to rich men who would take over their responsibilities are not realised. Sometimes these girls end up dropping out of school because the zeal to read is over shadowed by the desire to get married.
Explaining this, Patience Ekeoba of the Voices for Change (V4C), said, “We could blame this on gender role as the child grows up. The male children are taught to be focused and purpose-driven early in life. They are constantly reminded of their responsibilities as men. The girl-child on the other hand is brought up to look forward to her wedding day.”
That is why most times the typical greeting from aunties and neighbours to a girl-child, especially in the north, goes something like this, “Allah ya nuna mana bikin ki,” meaning, “May God show us your wedding day.” It usually is a commendation whenever a girl-child does something noteworthy, a birthday wish, or just goodwill.
Therefore, the girl-child grows up with the consciousness that she will one day get married and be taken care of by a man.
Some teenage girls smear their faces with all colours of makeup, hawking all year round. When some of them were asked why they were not in school now that education was free in Kaduna State, they happily said they were hawking to generate money for the wedding of one of them. They added that it was a routine that helped each one of them to eventually get married.
Malam Nura Mohammed was looking forward to his daughters getting married as a solution to the many mouths he fed, and hopefully that their husbands would help with money and small gifts as well. His five daughters are between the ages of seven and 15 from same mother.
The wife sat beside Mohammed, lost in her thoughts. She has four boys besides the five girls and was heavily pregnant.
Malam Sani Mustapha is a renowned tailor who has been in the business for decades. He is a proud father of four masters’ degree graduate boys earning their living in various fields. He trained his boys both in the formal and informal education. He explained that the way he saw the world transforming years back, he knew they would definitely need both.
However, sadly, that is not the case with his daughters. They all learned to sew but have no formal education. He explained that their husbands would not worry about that. Two of his daughters were divorced and back home with their children at the time of this interview.
The mass awareness created on the benefits of girl-child education should have reached every nook and cranny of our society and changed people’s mindset. However, interestingly, interaction with people from the geo-political zones of the country shows much more needs to be done.
Amaka Obi, from the east, described a similar ordeal female children faced in her environment where the girl-child is seen as a second class human who would soon be married off and have her surname changed to her husband’s, but that the male child would carry on the legacy of the family name.
She said preference was given to the male children in most cases where the parents could not afford to send all the children to school.
Therefore, one begins to wonder, how many would-be female doctors, engineers, teachers, pilots, nurses, architects, scientists, etc., the nation will lose because they are not educated.
Obi, who was lucky to be educated, said, “Education helps people to know their rights. It enables them to question happenings around them, proffer solutions and sometimes act as catalyst to change.”
She said, “Most illiterate women who have been subjected to domestic violence have no idea that their rights have been violated.”
Mrs. Awele Ideal is a lawyer, presently handling a pro-bono case of a young woman whose guardians have been abusing sexually for years and have instilled fear in her that she will die if she ever speaks of it. This young woman and her likes out there suffer in silence because they have no idea of their rights as human beings, and as women.
Therefore, educating the girl-child will invariably avert most of the ills that afflict women to their barest minimum.
Other maladies that interfere with the development of the girl-child to her full potential include the following: being a child bride, which affects her ability to develop physically and psychologically, and teen pregnancy, especially when not planned, whether in or out of wedlock: these should be discouraged.
Another factor is rape: when a young female child is made to hawk on the streets she is exposed to danger which includes rape. The health of the girl-child is also at risk as all the issues discussed above come with health hazards.
Early marriage, teenage pregnancy and rape could result to the girl being a VVF victim. Also, an HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases infected person could take advantage of their vulnerability and infect them. Education offers women the ability to take care of their diet and care for themselves, especially in pregnancy. Educated women plan their child spacing better than illiterate women, and this can be achieved if the girl-child gets a sound education.
Child trafficking is another hazard the girl-child faces in recent times. Apart from the international market that is the ultimate for trafficking in children, we should be concerned about the plight of house helps. Many of these children are raped by the men of the house and thrown out if they get pregnant. Others drop out of school to take care of the children belonging to the families they serve.
For a sustainable socio-economic development of the nation, issues that affect the girl-child must be taken seriously.
The importance of education and career guidance must be taught, not just to the male children, but the females as well. Both growing males and females need to maintain their dignity and self respect. The girl-child needs to know she too can leave her footprint on the sands of time and be better than the women before her: heroes and achievers liken the late Dora Akunyili, Amina Mohammed of the UN, Ngozi Iweala, late Laila Dogonyaro, etc: she could be better than them.
Girl-child education is not just a “female” problem; it affects the male as well. Mothers spend more time with their children: males and females. An educated mother would more likely push her children to succeed better than the illiterate mother would. This naturally creates a disparity between children raised by educated mothers and those raised by illiterate mothers. Most educated women are career specialists who earn a living and help with the home’s finances. This eases the burden for the man who may have to cater for not just his immediate family, but the extended family as well.
Kato contributes from Kaduna