Last week, the National Council of Catholic Women Organisation of Nigeria, NCCWO, dropped a bomb shell: in the next 10 years, there would be a scarcity of quality husbands in the country.
“The future of this country is going to be very bleak for the male-child. How many girls do you see hawking clothes? Go to Onitsha, they are all men. We have looked round and have come to see that there is a neglect of boys in education. Who are the armed robbers on the streets? They are mostly the boys. Let us concentrate on training boys.
“The NCCWO feels that a vacuum is being created, and very soon, we shall be faced with a situation where our educated girl-child will not find a corresponding suitable boy-child to marry.
This is because more boys drop out of school, apparently because the high rate of unemployed youth discourages our young boys from appreciating the need to be educated.
“The NCCWO also considers the fact that in the near future, quality husbands will become extremely scarce, with too many highly educated women looking for husbands, and settling for anyhow husbands, just to get married.
The result of this type of situation is better imagined and will not augur well for Nigerians,” the group’s National President, Chief Felicia Onyeabo, was quoted by virtually every newspaper in the land. She made the declaration at a briefing to herald the inauguration of Cor Mariae College, Abuja.
The women’s group warning based on the dwindling enrolment of the Nigerian boy-child is not new to many watchers of the country’s education scene.
It is a malaise, initially associated with the eastern part of the land which is now spreading like a malignant tumour round the country. First to draw global attention was a similar occurrence in the North. This even predated the one the women group raised the alarm on.
It is the despicably low attendance of the girl-child in schools in the northern part of the country. According to a study by UNICEF, 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.
In the North particularly, the gender gap remains particularly wide and the proportion of girls to boys in school ranges from one girl to two boys to one to three in some states.
Despite a significant increase in net enrolment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school. This situation is being addressed by current efforts of the Nigerian Government with the implementation of the Basic Education scheme.
The compulsory, free Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act was passed into law in 2004 and represents the government’s strategy to fight illiteracy and extend basic education opportunities to all children in the country. Many children do not attend school because their labour is needed to either help at home or to bring additional income into the family.
Many families cannot afford the associated costs of sending their children to school such as uniforms and textbooks. For others, the distance to the nearest school is a major hindrance. Another cause of low enrolment, especially in the North, is cultural bias.
Most parents do not send their children, especially girls, to school and prefer to send them to Qur’anic schools rather than formal schools. It has also been established that even when children enrol in schools, many do not complete the primary cycle. According to current data, 30 per cent of pupils drop out of primary schools and only 54 per cent transit to Junior Secondary Schools. Reasons for this low completion rate include child labour, economic hardship and early marriage for girls.
Observers, have however, noted that unlike in northern Nigeria, where there is a preference for boychild education due to religious and cultural factors, the reverse appears to be the case in the South East zone.
They, nonetheless, attributed the trend to the penchant for money-making ventures, particularly among the Igbo-speaking people of the South East zone. Sensing a damning effect in the nearest future, the Federal Government stepped by fashioning out a scheme in the zone: the “Back-To-School”.
The programme, which was launched in Enugu State by President Goodluck Jonathan, aims at raising public awareness in the South-East region on the importance of boy-child education. While inaugurating the programme, the president directed the Federal Ministry of Education to establish additional schools in the South East to address the challenge of the boy-child education in the area specifically.
President Jonathan directed that more schools should be constructed within one year to particularly address the yawning gap existing between boy-child education and girl-child education in the zone. He stressed that if efforts to close the gap were successful, the economic potential of individuals would be considerably improved, while they would be repositioned to become effective players in the economy.
“Education will, no doubt, enhance the success of our youths as small and medium entrepreneurs, especially now that there are a lot of programmes in place to support these groups or business organisations. “Participation in the formal education process plays an important part in enhancing the ability of the 21st Century businessman to succeed. It will help to open up the understanding of the dynamics of not only the local economy but also the global competitive environment.
“It is my expectation that the boys we are sending back to school today will do their best to acquire the requisite skills and become amazing assets to their respective communities. I, therefore, direct the construction of schools that will address the issue of access to education for boys in the South-East zone within one year,” Jonathan said.
A recent monitoring team report by Education for All, EFA, the arm of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, that capture the statistics of children without access to basic primary education around the globe, according to Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufai, the Minister of Education, spotlighted the downward fortunes of primary education in Nigeria.
According to the EFA Monitoring Team report, an estimated 61 million children of primary school age do not have access to education globally. Nigeria alone is home to an estimated 10.5 million out-of-school children in 2012 – 3.6 million more than in 2000, or 42 percent of the primary school-age population. In essence 17.21 percent of out-of-school children in the world are in Nigeria. In another light, one in every six out-of-school children is a Nigerian. Similarly, six million of 36 million girls out-of-school world-wide are Nigerians.
The situation may be worrisome but hardly surprising. In 2008, an EFA Development Index report for 129 countries revealed that of the 25 countries that are far from achieving the EFA four cardinal goals ratified by all members of UNESCO, two thirds are in sub-Saharan Africa which includes Nigeria. The situation stayed the same in 2009. The number of out-of-school children of primary school age climbed from 29 million in 2008 to 31 million in 2010.
The EFA report found that most of the children who are out of school, work in low-paid jobs, often to supplement the income of their families or guardian.
“The future of this country is going to be very bleak for the male-child. How many girls do you see hawking clothes? Go to Onitsha, they are all men. We have looked round and have come to see that there is a neglect of boys in education. Who are the armed robbers on the streets? They are mostly the boys. Let us concentrate on training boys.
“The NCCWO feels that a vacuum is being created, and very soon, we shall be faced with a situation where our educated girl-child will not find a corresponding suitable boy-child to marry.
This is because more boys drop out of school, apparently because the high rate of unemployed youth discourages our young boys from appreciating the need to be educated.
“The NCCWO also considers the fact that in the near future, quality husbands will become extremely scarce, with too many highly educated women looking for husbands, and settling for anyhow husbands, just to get married.
The result of this type of situation is better imagined and will not augur well for Nigerians,” the group’s National President, Chief Felicia Onyeabo, was quoted by virtually every newspaper in the land. She made the declaration at a briefing to herald the inauguration of Cor Mariae College, Abuja.
The women’s group warning based on the dwindling enrolment of the Nigerian boy-child is not new to many watchers of the country’s education scene.
It is a malaise, initially associated with the eastern part of the land which is now spreading like a malignant tumour round the country. First to draw global attention was a similar occurrence in the North. This even predated the one the women group raised the alarm on.
It is the despicably low attendance of the girl-child in schools in the northern part of the country. According to a study by UNICEF, 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.
In the North particularly, the gender gap remains particularly wide and the proportion of girls to boys in school ranges from one girl to two boys to one to three in some states.
Despite a significant increase in net enrolment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school. This situation is being addressed by current efforts of the Nigerian Government with the implementation of the Basic Education scheme.
The compulsory, free Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act was passed into law in 2004 and represents the government’s strategy to fight illiteracy and extend basic education opportunities to all children in the country. Many children do not attend school because their labour is needed to either help at home or to bring additional income into the family.
Many families cannot afford the associated costs of sending their children to school such as uniforms and textbooks. For others, the distance to the nearest school is a major hindrance. Another cause of low enrolment, especially in the North, is cultural bias.
Most parents do not send their children, especially girls, to school and prefer to send them to Qur’anic schools rather than formal schools. It has also been established that even when children enrol in schools, many do not complete the primary cycle. According to current data, 30 per cent of pupils drop out of primary schools and only 54 per cent transit to Junior Secondary Schools. Reasons for this low completion rate include child labour, economic hardship and early marriage for girls.
Observers, have however, noted that unlike in northern Nigeria, where there is a preference for boychild education due to religious and cultural factors, the reverse appears to be the case in the South East zone.
They, nonetheless, attributed the trend to the penchant for money-making ventures, particularly among the Igbo-speaking people of the South East zone. Sensing a damning effect in the nearest future, the Federal Government stepped by fashioning out a scheme in the zone: the “Back-To-School”.
The programme, which was launched in Enugu State by President Goodluck Jonathan, aims at raising public awareness in the South-East region on the importance of boy-child education. While inaugurating the programme, the president directed the Federal Ministry of Education to establish additional schools in the South East to address the challenge of the boy-child education in the area specifically.
President Jonathan directed that more schools should be constructed within one year to particularly address the yawning gap existing between boy-child education and girl-child education in the zone. He stressed that if efforts to close the gap were successful, the economic potential of individuals would be considerably improved, while they would be repositioned to become effective players in the economy.
“Education will, no doubt, enhance the success of our youths as small and medium entrepreneurs, especially now that there are a lot of programmes in place to support these groups or business organisations. “Participation in the formal education process plays an important part in enhancing the ability of the 21st Century businessman to succeed. It will help to open up the understanding of the dynamics of not only the local economy but also the global competitive environment.
“It is my expectation that the boys we are sending back to school today will do their best to acquire the requisite skills and become amazing assets to their respective communities. I, therefore, direct the construction of schools that will address the issue of access to education for boys in the South-East zone within one year,” Jonathan said.
A recent monitoring team report by Education for All, EFA, the arm of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, that capture the statistics of children without access to basic primary education around the globe, according to Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufai, the Minister of Education, spotlighted the downward fortunes of primary education in Nigeria.
According to the EFA Monitoring Team report, an estimated 61 million children of primary school age do not have access to education globally. Nigeria alone is home to an estimated 10.5 million out-of-school children in 2012 – 3.6 million more than in 2000, or 42 percent of the primary school-age population. In essence 17.21 percent of out-of-school children in the world are in Nigeria. In another light, one in every six out-of-school children is a Nigerian. Similarly, six million of 36 million girls out-of-school world-wide are Nigerians.
The situation may be worrisome but hardly surprising. In 2008, an EFA Development Index report for 129 countries revealed that of the 25 countries that are far from achieving the EFA four cardinal goals ratified by all members of UNESCO, two thirds are in sub-Saharan Africa which includes Nigeria. The situation stayed the same in 2009. The number of out-of-school children of primary school age climbed from 29 million in 2008 to 31 million in 2010.
The EFA report found that most of the children who are out of school, work in low-paid jobs, often to supplement the income of their families or guardian.
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