By EDDY OCHIGBO, Kaduna –
The growing calls against the impediments to girl education in the country have received the attention of the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and critical stakeholders in the education sector.
NATIONAL ACCORD reports that in its determination to ensure that girls are given easier and better access to education, FCDO, during the week, mobilized journalists to drive discussions and increase awareness against all barriers to girl-child education not only in Kaduna state but in the country as a whole.
Mr Istifanus Akau, the State Partnership Facilitator, FCDO’s governance programme, Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) told participants at the two-day Media Strategic Session in Zaria, that the media engagement was critical to promoting girl education, pointing out that the meeting was organised by PERL in collaboration with Kaduna State Basic Education Accountability Mechanism (KADBEAM) and Jalad Media Concept.
While explaining that PERL – the governance programme in Nigeria – funded by FCDO was aimed at bringing government and citizens together to address the mounting service delivery challenges facing education in Nigeria, he said the objective of the media strategic session was to push for continued engagement on identified social norms and other barriers and bottlenecks to girl-child education.
Akau stressed that the meeting was also to develop effective media engagement plan to deepen and guide the conversation toward influencing behavioural change on girl education, particularly in Kaduna State.
He explained that the media ensemble was in line with the UK’s resolve to contribute to global commitment to get 40 million girls into education and 20 million girls reading by age of ten. The partnership facilitator said that the commitment was in line with SDG–4 towards achieving inclusive and quality education for all as a proven vehicle for sustainable development.
“This goal is to ensure that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary schooling by 2030″, Akau disclosed, pointing out that education remained a top priority of the Kaduna state government, with a commitment to improve basic education.
While revealing that the government equally made a commitment to ensure that all children, particularly girls in difficult circumstances, ethnic minorities have access to quality basic education, he reiterated that “the government also introduced a ‘Second Chance Education’ initiative to provide further studying opportunities for girls that dropped out of school due to domestic demands, especially early marriage. “The state further introduced ‘Edu-Marshall’ to enforce compulsory school attendance, combat truancy and return children to schools”, Akau added.
Mrs Hadiza Umar, Co-Chair (Citizens), Open Government Partnership, while stressing the critical role of the media in creating the much needed awareness on girl-child education in Kaduna State, she maintained that the OGP, to which Kaduna state had signed unto, had provided a co-creation opportunity for the government and citizens to sit together to plan and implement projects and programmes.
She urged the media to tap into the window provided by the OGP in order to drive conversation around barriers and bottlenecks to girl education in the state.
“Most of the barriers revolve around security, socio-cultural, economy, infrastructure, water, sanitation and hygiene and in all of these, the media has a critical role to play in in creating the much needed awareness to address these impediments to girl education”, Umar remarked.
The two-day media strategic session organized to deepen conversation and increase awareness on the need to promote and encourage girl education in the country, touched on how citizens, key influencers and mechanisms can be supported to develop advocacy strategies to increase girls’ access to basic education; pathways; opportunities; as well as protective and safe learning environment for girl education in the country.