Barriers to Girl – Child Education in Nigeria: Implication for Counselling

Abstract

Nigeria recognizes education as a fundamental human right and is a signatory to many international conventions aimed at bridging gender imbalance in education. Despite this, Nigeria still faces a lot of challenges in popularizing the concept and importance of girl- child education. There is still a national gender disparity in basic education enrolment, retention and completion against the girl – child. Available statistics revealed that out of 10 million children in Nigeria, about 60 percent are girls who are out of school. Realizing that educating the girl - child helps to make communities and societies healthier, wealthier and safer, and can also help to reduce infant mortality, improve maternal health, and tackle the spread of HIV / AIDS, thus the importance of girl - child education therefore cannot be overstated. It is in recognition of this importance that it is said that “when you educate a man, you educate a person, but educate a woman, you educate a nation.” Against this background, the study therefore investigated some barriers to attaining formal education by the Nigerian girl-child. The study employed a descriptive survey design. A self designed checklist on barriers to girlchild education was used to gather information from 100 female adolescents randomly selected from three main markets in Ibadan metropolis. Their age range was between 13 and 17 years with a mean age of 14.2 years and standard deviation of 2.1. The study employed a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Data collected were analyzed using percentages. Findings revealed that poverty, early marriage, male preference, illiteracy, cultural belief, teenage pregnancy, religious inclination and ignorance/ negative parental attitude are some of the barriers to girl-child education in Nigeria. The findings of the study further revealed that poverty had the highest percentage (48%) amongst the barriers to girl-child education while inadequate school infrastructure had the least percentage (1%). Based on these findings, it was recommended that counsellors should enlighten parents & general public through jingles on television and radio on the importance of educating the girl-child and also introduce programmes aimed at promoting girl-child education in Nigeria