What the ‘Digital Clubs’ portends for Nigerian girls

The government’s concern about this is not unfounded. Statistics reveals that Nigerian women make up 50% of the population but hold less than 20% of ICT jobs in the country. Also only about 33% of women are online in Nigeria. The situation is not peculiar to the country. The Broadband Commission Working Group on Broadband […]

The government’s concern about this is not unfounded. Statistics reveals that Nigerian women make up 50% of the population but hold less than 20% of ICT jobs in the country. Also only about 33% of women are online in Nigeria.
The situation is not peculiar to the country. The Broadband Commission Working Group on Broadband and Gender in a new report entitled ‘’Doubling Digital Opportunities: Enhancing the inclusion of women and girls in the information society’’ lamented the pervasive gap in access of women to ICTs globally.
According to the report, there are currently 200 million fewer women online than men and this yawning gap could grow to 350 million in three years. The report also reveals that globally women are coming online later and more slowly than men. The report added that, of the world’s 2.8 billion Internet users, only 1.3 billion are women. The report states that women account for fewer than 20% of ICT specialists in developing economies.   The report also estimated that, by 2015, 90% of formal employment across all sectors will require ICT skills.
 Now, the government says it will tackle this problem. Last Thursday, Digital Girls Clubs was launched in Abuja.  The Digital Girls ICT Clubs to be sited in 12 secondary schools across the six geo political zones of the country will be deployed to remove the barriers that discourage girls from embracing ICTs.
1200 girls from the 12 pilot schools would be impacted upon in the first instance and the Clubs would thereafter be set up across all the Federal Government colleges in all the states, FG said.
Speaking at the Federal Government Girls College (FGGC) Bwari Abuja, where initiative was flagged up, the Mrs Johnson said the goal is to ensure that more girls embrace and adopt ICTs.  She said the Clubs will be manned by the ICT teachers of the twelve schools who will play a key role in stimulating the interest of the girls.
Periodically, she said, mentors would be invited to give inspiring talks and participate in various ICT related activities that will interest the girls.  The Clubs, she said, would teach a number of ICT skills including building websites and games, computer programming, graphics design, assembling and dissembling computers and creating short films.
 According to her, the project is an early intervention project of the ministry aimed at empowering and encouraging Nigerian girls in secondary schools to develop an early interest in ICT.  The initiative, Mrs Johnson said, would also help demystify ICTs and project technology as a viable career option that can empower and impact positively on the future of the Nigerian girls.
She said the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in a bid to empower women and girls in Nigeria created a gender empowerment scheme titled Girls and Women in Nigeria (G-WIN) with the sole aim of positively impacting and improving the lot of women and girls in Nigeria.
“To enable this empowerment process, five Ministries- Ministry of Communication Technology, Agriculture, Works, Health and Water Resources signed MOUs with the Ministry of Women Affairs and Finance to empower women and girls through specific interventions and services geared at improving the lives of women and girls in Nigeria”, the minister said.
She said   a portal www.digitalgirls.org.ng has been created to act as a key tool for stimulating and empowering the girls to embrace and adopt ICTs.
FGGC’s Principal Mrs Anna Bamaiyi said the programme would surely go a long way in bridging the ICT gulf between males and females. She said without lCT, education would meaningless in the modern age.
She advised the students to embrace ICT and go into the development of software applications and devices.
To show the importance the school attached to ICT, the principal said, students results sheet are done by the school, using the SAF Result compiler software.
She said the school website is functional and updated regularly to reflect the changing realities in the society. All these, she said, are to encourage the female students to use ICT in their day to day activities.
Representing the Ministry of Communication Technology Perm Sec Dr tunji Olaopa, a director in the ministry Mr Wale Edun said the ministry would not leave any stone unturned in getting Nigerian youth busied with relevant ICT activities.
Many female students who spoke at the Digital Girls Clubs said they were happy with the initiative but said the government should follow it through; and should not be abandoned. And in the words one of them: “sustaining the programme would help in reducing unemployment problem in the country.”