There is no gainsaying the fact that the northern part of the country is incomparable to its southern counterpart in terms of education [western education], because the latter has quite number of educated people both males and females holding different qualifications ranging from diplomas, degrees, masters and PHDs more than the northern region which however has higher population.
This can be proven looking at available statistics and reports on the number of out of school children in the north in comparison to the southern region.
Even in workplaces, it is observed that the northern females lag behind when compared with their southern counterparts as there are professions where northern women are hardly found.
At the moment, many northern states have high number of out of school children that cut across both sexes. A report by the Bauchi state house of assembly in a bill on reduction of out of school children in the state indicates that at present, there are about 1.2 million children out of schools in the state.
In the neighboring state of Gombe, there are over 550,000 out of schools children according to a UNICEF account. The situation is the same in all the northern states and the problem can be attributed to so many factors.
Although the white men who brought western education and civilization to the nation were first settled at the south, the value and importance of education to all people cannot in this era, be overemphasized.
Western education teaches skills and provides job opportunities as well as improve the wellbeing of the people in all sectors including health, science, technology and innovation.
It is a fact that there is still higher level of girls’ enrolment in schools and higher number of learned women from the south than in the north as that could be authenticated if one looks at our institutions of learning and places of works where the women of southern extraction engaged in different careers.
The development led to series of campaigns, enlightenments and clarion calls on the need for girl child education in the north over the years so as to balance the equation, but the question here is; has the region really recorded significant improvements and progress in that regard now?
This reporter had carried out a survey in selected secondary schools in Bauchi State to ascertain the progress or otherwise of girl child education in the state at present and gathered that there are many girls in the schools just as many others are also out of school due to several reasons.
Speaking, some female students of FOMWAN model school Bauchi, Zainab M. Garba, Maryam Adam Muhammed, Habiba Abdullahi Shehu and Khadija Abubakar Lame all of whom are in the senior classes said that they want to proceed to tertiary institutions after their completion of secondary school to study various professions.
Zainab and Maryam want to be nurses to help their fellow women when they grow up while Habiba and Khadija have the ambitions of becoming lawyer and newscaster [Journalist] respectively.
At the government day secondary school Kofar Idi Bauchi, Mubashshira Muhammed and Rukaiya Yusuf explained that their parents have agreed to allow them to continue with their studies in higher institutions just like they uncovered that many of their friends were not given the chances to come to even primary schools by their parents.
They said the development was due to both financial problem and lack of interest on the side of the parents to enroll their wards in the schools.
It is observed that many girls are married off immediately after graduation from secondary schools in the north.
While the teachers of the two secondary schools claimed that the number of the girls in the schools is encouraging, the first female professor in Bauchi local government Fatima Tahir who is also the vice chancellor of the Bauchi State University Gadau (BASUG) lamented that there is still low level of enrolment of the northern girls in our universities.
‘’I am not satisfied with the number of our girls in universities. Because if you go to our tertiary institutions, you will find out that even those [girls] that were enrolled in university are mostly in the management courses. But only very few of them could be found in the sciences such as; engineering, geology, zoology etc.’’, she pointed out.
The first Bauchi State female professor of microbiology who ascribed the problem of girl child education in the north to the tradition and parents’ attitude however expressed disbelief with the view that early marriage is a barrier to women’s education.
‘’I don’t agree that marriage is a barrier to education because I married immediately I finished my secondary school and I had proceeded with my studies to become a professor. Women can acquire as more knowledge as possible as long as they get the support of their husbands’’.
Professor Fatima Tahir called on the state governments in the north to provide some incentives for female students who go to higher institutions and offer automatic employments to female graduates as way of encouraging girl child education in the region.
In Gombe State, girls child labour is one of the things stopping the enrolment of females in schools. For instance, girls in Gombe are hired by farmers to go to farms and work for payment of token as fees for their labour.
This medium observes that school aged girls troop out to the streets during rainy seasons looking for farmers to carry them in vehicles to farms for labour otherwise called “Barema”.
Many civil society organisations fault the barema practice on the ground that it stops attendance in schools and subjects girls to exploitation.
Moreso, in other northern states like Borno and Yobe, insecurity had prevented many girls from going to schools as terrorists had in the past years abducted many girls from various schools in the two states, taken them to forests and turned them into sex slaves.
Some of these major abductions include that of chibok in Borno state and Dapci in Yobe state respectively with one of the abductees Leah Sharibu still in captivity after six years of her abduction.
To encourage the enrolment, retention and completion of schools among children, the Chief of Bauchi field office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Mr Tursha Rene advocated provision of safety and structures in schools.
