MILLIONS of girls kept out of school in Nigeria because of early marriage, fears about sexual contact with boys, and “misinformed” religious beliefs are to be the focus of a new campaign to raise educational standards in Africa’s most populous country.
One part of the campaign, which is being supported by British taxpayers, will see successful female professionals being sent into communities to persuade parents that education brings “virtues, not vice”.
Efforts will also be made to convince Muslim parents that there is no religious justification for the widespread belief that girls should be married as young teenagers before they finish puberty.
Other reforms include the conversion of some co-educational schools into single-sex institutions.
The aim is to satisfy parents who stop their daughters from going to secondary school because of fears that sexual contact with male pupils will wreck the girls’ marriage prospects.
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The measures form part of a wide-ranging drive, which is partly funded by the British Council and Britain’s Department for International Development.
Nigeria already has a population of about 180 million nearly three times that of the UK and is expected to become the world’s third largest nation behind China and India by 2050.
Official statistics show, however, that around 34 per cent of Nigerian children fail to attend school in a trend which is threatening to undermine the country’s prospects and contributing to high levels of poverty.
Attendance is even worse in northern Nigeria and other largely rural areas. Girls are more likely than boys to be kept at home. One reason is that mothers often want girls to assist them selling goods on the street.
The number of female pupils falls further as they reach their early teens, a traditional marriage age. Families also use children to help in the fields at key times of the year.
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Nigeria’s education minister Adamu Adamu told the Evening Standard that the government might introduce fines for parents who fail to ensure their children attend school as one way of addressing the problem.
Other efforts are already under way, however, as part of a new “inclusive education” campaign in northern Nigeria that is being co-ordinated by the British Council.
Those taking part include Khadija Sanusi Gumbi, a graduate from Kaduna state, who warned that both parents and children needed convincing that education was beneficial.
“We have to have positive examples to send them to school. Most girls go to primary school but later stop because they want to get married,” she said.