The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the United Nations Children’s Education Funds (UNICEF) Nigeria have expressed worry over the continuous decline in the number of Nigerian girls who are transiting from primary to junior secondary schools nationwide.
They said a larger percentage of Nigerian girls drop out each year after primary education and that the development is not only worrisome and anti-progress but totally unacceptable for Nigeria.
Speaking at the just concluded regional consultative meeting in Lagos with the adolescent school girls from the south-west region including Oyo, Kwara, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Ekiti and Osun States as participants, the Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, disclosed that less than 30 per cent of all female pupils in Nigeria usually transit from primary to junior secondary schools nationwide.
He said the figure suddenly gets decreasing in recent years and continues to nosedive unabated.
He said to reverse this trend and ensuring all school-going age girls in the country enrol for primary education and transit to junior and then to senior secondary schools and move on to higher institutions was the essence of the two-day consultative meeting organised by UBEC in conjunction with UNICEF and various state’s universal basic education boards (SUBEBs).
He said the forum would be replicated in other regions of the country with their respective adolescent school girls as participants.
Bobboyi, who was represented at the event by the Deputy Executive Secretary (Services), UBEC, Dr Isiaka Kolawole, noted that though government at both federal and state levels with their agencies as well as private organisations and individuals had over time come up with various interventions to address girl-child education in the country, more efforts are required to arrive at a desirable result.
He said since UBEC could not do the work alone, the commission collaborates with other public-spirited organisations such as UNICEF to find out the real reasons many school girls drop out after primary six education and then proffer a common and workable solution to retain them even to higher education level.
He said evidence had shown that it is only in an informed and enlightened society through quality and quantitative education that both boys and girls can develop their full potential for quality life anywhere globally.
While commending UNICEF and other development partners for joining hands with the commission to ensure every Nigerian girl-child educated and grow to become a responsible mother and take the position of higher responsibilities in the society, he said UBEC would not rest until the vision is achieved including for boys irrespective of their cultural, religion and family backgrounds.
In her own remark, Education Specialist, UNICEF Abuja, Azuka Menkiti, said UNICEF would help in any way possible to team up with UBEC and relevant institutions to get girls and boys enrolled and retained in schools and further their education to the university level.
She said certainly many factors are responsible for girls dropping out of school and these vary from one region to another, but the bottom line which is the essence of the forum is for UNICEF to join hands with UBEC and others to find suitable and workable solutions to address them without leaving any region behind.
Also speaking, Executive Chairman of Lagos SUBEB, Wahab Alawiye-King, said the initiative to find real problems that prevent many girls from going beyond primary schools from those concern would go a long way to help find effective solutions that would encourage all girls to transit from primary to junior secondary schools and also retain and see them for further studies.
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