I am writing this article based on my personal experience with girls, parents and boys in the deeply rural settlements in Northern Nigeria.
It is evident that core Northern women fall behind in terms of education. They are mostly married off at a very young age, unlike those in the semi urban and urban settlements. Many reasons abound, from what I have seen, briefly highlighted below.
Some of the communities I have visited had only up to JSS structure. There was no SSS nearby and most parents couldn’t afford to send their children to boarding schools in towns located far away. Most were simply not financially buoyant, as they could not afford the sum of ten thousand naira (N10, 000) to get provisions, toiletries and other basics. Others simply feared for the safety of their girls.
Most schools in the rurals do not have sufficient and/or qualified teachers. Of these, the highest qualification is NCE with no means to obtain further training. There are very few or no female teachers in some schools and this is a discouraging factor as the girls do not have a female mentor/role model in the school.
The most disturbing factor is poverty. Its’ repercussions are highly detrimental, the most disturbing of which is that parents marry off their daughters prematurely. The consequences of this cannot be over emphasised, I would only mention a few. Parents marry off their daughters so they can ease themselves of the burden of feeding and catering for their basic needs. It is an added bonus if the son in law is well to do, because they will also benefit from their daughter’ new found wealth. It is not uncommon to hear an older female relative saying to the girl: “ai gwara ki je ki gidan da za ki huta mu ma mu huta” meaning “it is best you go to a house where you will rest and we shall rest too” by this, it is assumed that the girl in question will flourish as a result of her husband’s wealth. What happens to the marriage after the wedding is something else. Another means to curb their poverty is by sending the girls begging or hawking, where a lot of things go down against their girlhood.
Some cultures believe that educating a girl is a total waste of time and resources, because the place of a woman is her husband’s house, to bear children and keep the home front. As such, girls are either seldom enrolled in school, they are sent hawking or left at home doing nothing. In other cases, they are pulled out of school to be married off.
Religious misconceptions are another hindrance to girl’s education. A lot of debate is ongoing regarding this. Some are of the opinion that a girl must be married off the moment she attains puberty, irrespective of whether she is in school or not. Others are emphasizing that Islam (which is the religion practiced in the core north) did not set the age of marriage for a girl. These misconceptions make some of parents to marry their daughters off at a very young age, without her having acquiring any form education, either religious or formal.
To curb this, a lot needs to be done to improve enrollment, retention to completion of girls in basic education; I will state my opinion. We all need to put our hands together to enlighten, assist and sacrifice where necessary, for the betterment of our society.
First off, we need to realise that the teaching job cannot for any reason be compromised. It has become a common practice to regard teaching as a lowly job. Teachers are regarded as those who were unable to secure a better paying job; they are looked down upon as lower class individuals. The prestige of teaching needs to be reinstated. For this to happen, only qualified individuals should be employed as teachers, their wages need to be reviewed, the package should be attractive, and teachers should feel motivated. They should be encouraged to further their education and go for update training; the teaching job should be attractive and competitive.
On their part, teachers should be more dedicated to the job; they should be ready to live and teach in rural schools, if they are posted there. They should pay attention to their weak students and not to shun or downgrade them before the other students. Teachers should understand that it is not about making the students afraid of them, but showing them love, while being strict at the same time, in a process referred to as “tough love”. Teachers should study psychology, to understand the diverse nature of children and be able to manage them better.
Parents should understand that teachers are meant to shape the character of their children and thus they should not interfere, except where extremely necessary. I know of a mother who went to challenge a male teacher at school because the teacher punished her adolescent son for misbehavior. This mother went to the extent of striking the teacher across the face and the teacher struck her back. This type of attitude from a parent should is totally unacceptable. Some parents neglect the upbringing of their children, who then feel they are “above the law” and tend to misbehave at school, making the teaching experience totally frustrating.
The school in itself should be conducive enough for teaching/learning. There should be sufficient classrooms that are well lighted and well ventilated, a good supply of potable water, sufficient toilets and comfortable staff lounge. Other structures like laboratories, cookery kitchen and libraries should be put in place to encourage reading and research.
This is just to mention a little from what I have experienced while out in the field. I would welcome intellectual contributions, thank you.