Education
Source: allAfrica
Yabo Yakubu had a dream of becoming a nurse. She developed interest in the profession right from her childhood after seeing how her community accorded respect to a female nursing officer that used to attend to sick persons in her area.
Yabo told Daily Trust: "I always admire the nurse and said to myself that I will be a nurse when I grow up."
However, Yabo's dream was cut short while she was 10 years when her uncle visited her home and took her with him to Abuja to serve as a maid.
As a maid, she was paid a monthly salary that was sent to her parents, usually at the end of the year.
She said that most girls of her age from her community in Plateau State work as maids in exchange for money, items or schooling, adding that in her own case, her parents resolved that they needed the money to take care of the family and prepare for her marriage.
Now at 21years and only attended school up to primary four, Yabo said she had served over five families in Abuja and only visits home occasionally.
She said: "I have no hope of going to school again to become a nurse because my parents are looking forward to me getting married."
Yabo is one of the many girls whose dreams of going to school with a view to having brighter future were cut short.
In Nigeria, many children do not attend school because their labour is needed to either help at home or to bring additional income into the family.
This is largely due to the fact that lot of families cannot afford the associated costs of sending their children to school such as fees, uniforms, textbooks and other expenses.
The girl-child has been proven to be at a more disadvantaged position when it comes to going to school and report has it that girls have the highest percentage of out-of-school children in the country.
According to a UNICEF report, 40 per cent of Nigerian children, aged 6-11, do not attend any primary school with the northern region recording the lowest school attendance rate in the country, particularly for girls.
The report indicated that educationally, the gender gap between girls and boys remains wide as the proportion of girls to boys in school ranges from 1 girl to 2 boys to 1 to 3 in most states.
Also, a research conducted by the UNICEF has discovered that a number of factors have contributed to girls' missing out on basic education which includes lack of basic sanitation in schools, pressure for early marriage, poverty, vulnerability to sexual assault in schools by teachers and fellow students.
The findings stated that 1 in 10 school-age African girls skip school during menstruation or drop out altogether because of the lack of sanitation.
"Girls are viewed as an economic burden or an asset for economic advancement, they may be withdrawn from schools to marry: 9 of the world's 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are in Africa," the research revealed.
Meanwhile, the federal government, stakeholders and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have, over the years, initiated programmes to enhance girls' education in the country with emphasis on enrolment and retention of girls in school.
The federal government has done a lot to transform the education sector for the benefit of Nigerian children.
For instance, the national campaign on access to basic education which was launched in Yola and Enugu provides impetus to increase enrolment and the provision of infrastructure in the education sector.
This has led to the development of schools acclaimed initiatives like the establishment of girl-child education initiatives with about 66 girl-child model school projects spread across the country.
In a quest to widen the scope of access to education in the county, the federal government also integrated Early Childhood Care Development Education (ECCDE) as part of education system.
The programme has started yielding positive results as enrolment in the ECCDE has increased from 2.1m in 2011 to 2.9m in 2013, while enrolment at the public primary schools level jumped from 22.1m in 2011 to 24.2 m 2013. Also at junior secondary schools level it was increased from 4,3m to 4.7m during the period under review.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)'s 2014 reports show that enrolment, at all levels of education, has increased in most states in the country.
It states that the rate of primary school age girls enrolled in school increased to 47.9 percent from 45.7 percent between 2010 and 2013, while the percentage of female (girls) enrolled in secondary schools increased from 45.3 percent in 2010 to 47.3 percent in 2013.
However, the year-on-year rate of change in girls' enrolment in secondary school rose from 8.0 percent in 2011 to 11.5 percent in 2012; and 17.0 percent in 2013.
Despite the increase in enrolment, it was observed that there are still many girls that have been cut off from going to school by either activities of insurgents, particularly in the three crisis states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe; poverty, cultural or gender inequality.
National Gender Policy on Basic Education also stated that there is wide consensus among various practitioners that the educational performance rates of children, especially girls, are greatly determined by the literacy levels of their parents.
Having a literate mother has been associated with the higher percentage increase in the probability that an adolescent girl will be literate. Also, literacy confers greater power in decision making on a mother
Therefore, the social benefits of investing in girls' education cannot be relegated to the ground, Nigerian government and international community have agreed that the voice of every young person should be heard so that no one is excluded, left behind or denied a right to education, irrespective of where they come from, their gender status, culture or disability.