The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has called on government at all levels to address the gender gaps in education so as to give every Nigerian child equal access to education.
Mrs Azuka Menkiti, UNICEF Education Specialist, made the call in Kano on Tuesday at a Two-Day Media Dialogue on Access to Education.
Menkiti noted that the poor implementation of education policy in Nigeria has caused havoc to gender equity among the school aged children.
According to her, gender is an important factor in the pattern of education marginalisation.
She urged the government to plan policy with equity, saying the country would continue to have bad indicator except we close these gaps.
“In the northeast and northwest states in Nigeria, the female primary attendance ratio is 44 per cent and 47.4 per cent respectively, which means more than half of primary school aged girls are not in school.
“In comparison, the attendance rate for boys in the northeast and northwest are 48.8 per cent and 50.8 per cent respectively.
“The MIC 2016 shows that while southern states have an average of 11 per cent children aged 6-14 years out of school; the northern states have 31 per cent of children aged 6-14 years out of school.
“This shows there are gaps in gender, location and residence, which means those, who are poor, does not have access to education allocation.
Menkiti added that societal believe had also been a major cause of marginalization, which had caused a huge hindrance through human actions and inactions.
She, therefore, pledged UNICEF’s commitment to ensure adequate intervention and advocacy to bridge the gap of inequality, especially among girls and women who are more vulnerable in the society.
“UNICEF is also priotising learning outcomes, training teachers, facilitators and supporting infrastructures in schools.
“We are equally supporting policy and programmes of government in sector planning and make sure the plan is reflected in budget’’.
In his presentation, an Education and Development Consultant, Dr Dayo Ogundimu said sustainable plan would go a long way to savage the future and social economic of the country.
Ogundimu explained that it was important to key into a lifelong learning and national planning of a child’s education.
He said this would enable a country like Nigeria to have a violence free nation.
Ogundimu further commended the Federal Government for school feeding programme and other interventions, while advocating for more to be done to boost equitable education among school age children. (NAN)