By Longtong Ibrahim
Girl-child education has been identified as one of the key strategies for reducing maternal and child mortality as well as a tool for encouraging economic growth.
“Women who are educated are likely to attend ante natal and take care of their children because of their educational exposure, thereby reducing the risks associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and complications,” the Kaduna State Program Officer of Christian Aid Nigeria, Mercy Okeke, said.
Mrs. Okeke stated this Monday in Kaduna, while presenting a paper on “Girl-Child Education in Nigeria: Trends, practices, attitudes, and related barriers” at a three day training for Journalists on Collective Action for Adolescent Girls Initiative (CAAGI) and Voice to the People (V2P), organized by Christian Aid in Collaboration with Development Communications Network in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria.
According to her, “educated women are less likely to die in childbirth; they are more likely to have healthy and well nourished children – research has shown that a child born to a literate woman is 50percent more likely to survive pass the age of five.
“In Nigeria, 66 percent of mothers with secondary school education give birth in a health facility, compared to 11 percent with no education (British council 2012).
“The children of educated women are likely to go to school as well as raises schooling level for the next generation. They also have employment opportunities with higher pay after attaining good level of education.”
Mrs. Okeke however noted that poverty, gender norms and traditional practices, early marriage and access to school for people living in rural areas where long distance have to be covered before reaching a school are some barriers to girl child education in the country.
Earlier in his remarks, Governance Manager for Christian Aid, Temitope Fashola, explained that the essence of the workshop is to strengthen the capacities of Journalists in reporting issues around development at grassroots level and improving opportunities for the adolescent girls in the society.
He pointed out that the projects (V2P, CAAGI) are implemented in northeastern states and Kaduna, which aims at promoting accountability and address issues of development issues by empowering citizens to influence decision making around service delivery and to hold leaders accountable for improve public service for all.
Fashola also emphasized that there is poor level of service delivery in different sectors of the society, hence the need for empowering citizens so as to drive good governance and accountability.
“CAAGI project aims to improve the choices and opportunities available for girl-child in Kaduna state to live productive and meaningful lives through building active citizenship enhancing the voice and representation of women and other social excluded groups and establishing platforms for engagement between citizens and the state” he added.
