60% Of Out-Of-School Children In Nigeria Are Girls - UNICEF

ACTIVITIES commemorating this year’s International Day of the Girl Child ended on Tuesday, with the investiture of the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari,  Aisha,  as the Grand Patron, High Level Women Advocates for Girls Education in Nigeria, during an advocacy visit of 50 adolescent girls to her.

Hajia Buhari, at the interactive session with the girls, promised to advocate publicly for legislation against child marriage.

She encouraged parents to keep their daughters in school for at least 12 years.

“No single girl will be left behind in my movement to get every girl into school,” she promised.

With the theme of this year’s International Day of the Girl Child being “The power of the adolescent girl: Vision for 2030,” UNICEF and other partners, including the Federal Ministry of Education, focused their activities on the transforming power of education to empower adolescent girls to overcome all challenges that affect their lives and inhibit their prospects of advancement.

The 2013 National Demographic Health Survey indicated that there were about 20 million adolescent girls in Nigeria and there was very low education rate among them, especially those in the lowest wealth quintiles in the society.

In Nigeria, 60 per cent of the 10.5 million children out of school are girls.

Data indicates that among other factors, one reason for low enrolment and retention of girls in schools, especially in the North, is the lack of female teachers in the rural areas.

In response to this, UNICEF, with funding from the United Kingdom Department for International Development and counterpart funding from five participating states, started the Girls’ Education Project.

The Girls’ Education Project Phase 3 aims to achieve one million enrolment of girls into school by the end of  2020.

The project is currently running in five northern states of Bauchi, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara.

Since implementation commenced in 2012, the project had contributed to the enrolment of additional 360,000 girls in primary schools in the five states.