User:Bola0657/Female education in Nigeria

BOLA: Great work here developing and excellent topic! You have also completed the required online training. One suggestion is to ensure you add a relevant image. Overall, solid effort here! - Professor Robinson

Dear Bola: The article that you have chosen is pretty good it deals with feminism, especially the section you have added because religion is a vast topic where you can expand on that topic in many ways. I suggest adding more sections which talks about how other religions view Nigerian women. From Joker 12346

EDITS I HAVE MADE: For this assignment I added information into the "Cultures, values and tradition" section and the "Current policies of progression" section, made a new section named "Religion," and added pictures with captions and citations for all the sections.

There are various cultural and socioeconomic issues in Nigeria that prevent women from having adequate access to education.

Culture, values and tradition
Various cultural and social values have historically contributed to gender disparity in education. According to work done by Denga, one prominent cultural view is that it is better for the woman to stay home and learn to tend to her family instead of attending school. To explain the fact that more boys than girls participated in education, Nigerian researcher Obasi identified a host of constraints with 'Nigerian tradition' being named as top of the list.

The 'Nigerian tradition' was explained as a tradition that attaches higher value to a man than a woman, whose place is believed to be the kitchen. A study by the University of Ibadan linked the imbalance in boys' and girls’ participation in schooling was to the long-held belief in male superiority and female subordination. This situation was further aggravated by patriarchal practices which gave girls no traditional rights to succession. Therefore, the same patriarchal practices encouraged preference to be given to the education of a boy rather than a girl.The Nigerian society (both historical and contemporary) has been dotted with peculiar cultural practices that are potently hurtful to women's emancipation, such as early/forced marriage, wife-inheritance and widowhood practices. As daughters self-identify as females with their mother and sisters, and sons as males with their father and brothers, gender stereotyping becomes institutionalized within the family unit. Also, the dominant narratives of religion in both colonial and post-colonial Nigerian society privileges men at the detriment of women, even in educational accessibility.

According to Ethel Fegan, a superintendent of education for Nigeria, there are many issues that arise with any attempt to educate women in Nigeria. Due to Nigeria not educating women for a very long time, changing their education system in order to include women is something that is beyond their way of thinking. Fegan sums up the state of women becoming educated by saying: "For the woman is the natural keeper of the home and it is scarcely too much to say that on her way of life and conduct depend the whole fabric of social life."

Religion
In Northern Nigerian, the progress for the enrollment of females in schools has been extremely slow due to their religion. People from Northern Nigeria are largely Hausa Muslim and believed that women being in education would interfere with early marriage. Women in Northern Nigeria are seen as housewives and are usually kept in seclusion due to their religious beliefs. Girls are often married off to men as early as 11 and 12 years old thus making education impossible for them to complete and unimportant for them to pursue.

Significance
Women with some formal education are more likely to seek medical care, ensure their children are immunized, be better informed about their children's nutritional requirements, and adopt improved sanitation practices. As a result, their infants and children have higher survival rates and tend to be healthier and better nourished. According to The International Center for Research on Women, the education that a girl receives is the strongest predictor of the age she will marry and is a critical factor in reducing the prevalence of child marriage. The World Bank estimates that an additional year of schooling for 1,000 women helps prevent two maternal deaths. Also, each additional year of formal education that a mother completes translates to her children staying in school an additional one-third to one-half of a year.

The most important ingredient of employment opportunity is education, especially higher education. If employment opportunities are different, standards of living, life expectancies and other parameters of existence and of well-being, will be different. "For Nigeria to achieve the goal of being among the largest 20 economies in the world, she must rapidly educate the children, most of all, the girls. Educating girls is known to be the basis for sound economic and social development. Educating girls produces mothers who are educated and who will in turn educate their children, care for their families and provide their children with adequate nutrition," says Dr. Robert Limlim, UNICEF's Deputy Representative. "Therefore educating girls translates to better health for the children, reduction in child morbidity and mortality, thus triggering off a snowball effect of achieving all the other MDGs in a sustainable manner."

Current policies of progression
Currently Nigerian women are making many advancements within their society. In recent years, three male dominated professions, the Nigerian Medical Association, the Nigerian Bar Association and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, have been led by female presidents. The subsequent creation of the National Commission for Women and a ministerial portfolio for Women Affairs provide additional avenues for the promotion of women's educational issues and the enhancement of the role of women in national development by way of a statutory body and a Ministry.

Today, more children go to school and learn to read and write than in previous decades. As a result, younger persons are much more likely to be literate than older persons. In a survey done by the International Education Statistics measured Nigerian literacy across different 5-year age groups. Among persons aged 15 to 19 years - those who were of primary school age in the 1990s - the literacy rate is 70%. Among persons 80 years or older, only 13% are literate. Additionally, the gap between boys and girls aged 15 to 19 is only 11%. Many females are now being able to complete their basic educations and women are now studying to become midwives. Specifically, Aisha Moh'd Kazaure, a principal for a midwifery school located in Northern Nigeria, states that having more midwives are important due to many women and babies not making it past the birthing process. In March of 2012, with the help of the United Kingdom government aided program PATHS2, Aisha was able to make curriculums, teaching aids, books, and essential equipment.