Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation still lags behind its peers in equipping girl children for the knowledge economy through relevant education programmes.
Education data from the Global Gender Gap index 2017 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows Nigeria slipped to 135th position scoring 0.813 out of 144 countries in 2017 from 134th where it scored 0.814 in 2016 (Score of 0.00 means unequal and 1.00 means equal)
The index captures the gap between women and men’s current access to education through ratios of women to men in primary, secondary, tertiary level and female literacy to the male literacy rate.
“Overtime in the last few years they have been a very bad turn out in girls going to school. For example if you drive through the streets of Lagos and the busy urban areas you will see that girls are being trafficked for house jobs and are basically in the streets hawking sachet water,” Odumosu Omolara, chief executive officer, Class Climax Consulting said
Some studies have shown that every woman has her own job or duty in this modern society in which men are still the ‘strongest gender’ and married women have lots of worries and they lead more stressful lives than married men.
“Most married women who want to deepen their educational skills don’t have time because they have to take care of their homes,” Omolara further said
Some African countries did better in their ranking and scores while some did not do that well. The top five countries were Botswana, which scored 1.000, Lesotho scored 1.000, Namibia scored 0.999, Swaziland scored 0.995 and South Africa scored 0.993 The top five countries that were ranked low in Africa were Angola scored 0.763, mail scored 0.741 Benin scored 0.714, guinea scored 0.699 and chad scored 0.572
Based on the trend from 2013 till 2017, Nigeria is still lagging behind in terms of inclusive education for girls in all areas. Based on the trend in 2013 the country scored 0.811, in 2014, it scored 0.777 and in 2015, it scored 0.802
Most stakeholders in the education sector attributed the poor ranking to the mind-set and perception of what women are meant to be in the society
“We have traditional drawbacks after many centuries that still play today in our society telling women that we are only good for domestic activities and these drawbacks still make it difficult for the girl child to be educated,” Edobong Akpabio, executive director, Living Green Farms and Garden Foundation said to BusinessDay in a phone interview
Jennifer Chukwujekwe, chief executive officer, Jenniez School of Africa Interior Design said that at the moment women have be only delegated for domestic activities meaning that women are only meant to be in the kitchen.
Some benefits of gender equality in politics include: variety of perspective in the decision-making process, which tends better mirror the needs of more members of society but this must begin with gender parity in education.
“Women should support each other in terms of decision making and also push each other to politics or election posts so as to minimise the disparity between men and women in politics. And this will be only achieved if there is gender parity in education,” Alison Phido, Executive Director, African Radio Drama Association (ARDA) said.
Over the years different countries have given support to women through grants and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have seen that equal opportunities are needed and more women need to be empowered so that by 2030, they can achieve one of the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) which states that all girls and boys should complete free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education.
“We should do some sustainable sub-skill programmes towards academic and skills that will be attractive for women because we like to make money” Omolara said.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU & BUNMI BAILEY
