CHILD RIGHT ACT AND GIRL CHILD EDUCATION

1.1 Introduction

The girl-child is a biological female offspring from birth to eighteen (18) years of age. This is the age before one becomes young adult. This period covers the crèche, nursery or early childhood (0 – 5 years), primary (6 – 12 years) and secondary school (12 – 18 years). During this period, the young child is totally under the care of the adult who may be her parents or guardians and older siblings. It is made up of infancy, childhood, early and late adolescence stages of development. During this period, the girl-child is malleable, builds and develops her personality and character. She is very dependent on the significant others, those on whom she models her behaviour, through observation, repetition and imitation. Her physical, mental, social, spiritual and emotional developments start and progress to get to the peak at the young adult stage.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

The girl-child education in Northern states has been lagging behind all this while in terms of education one can wonder why the situation should persist like this in respects of the light of the clear provisions in National Policy on Education that education is a right for every Nigerian Child, The National Policy on Education (2004) also has as its 5th objective, the building of a “bright land full of opportunities for all individual”. Northern states in Nigeria as a whole, there is the presence of discrimination against girl-child in the access to basic education. The Northern region which is so much dominated by the Hausas who have no interest in girl-child education as it was viewed exclusively for the male child. The girl-child was not only denied formal education, but also the Qur’anic education. The few girls that attempted school during western education after the amalgamation in 1914 did that under duress.

Primary education started in Nigeria in the 1840s with the advent of the missionaries and the traditional system of governance. The traditional rulers and chiefs who had the direct contact with the colonialists were very reluctant to send their children and wards to the early schools established because they were not sure of the motive of the British. Instead, the traditional rulers and chiefs sent children of slaves and others who were’ serving them as house-helps to these schools. It was after these; slaves became literate and were employed by the missionaries as clerks and interpreters that it dawned on the traditional rulers that it could after all be beneficial to send their children to school (Adeleke, 1997).

According to Ayodele (2000), the traditional education in Nigeria is such that the girl-child is made to understudy her mother while the boys are made to also understudy their fathers in their chosen professions. The expectation therefore, was that the culture of the people never encouraged the girl-child to do more than help out in cooking food and doing other domestic chores. Over time therefore, everybody imbibed the culture and the girl-child education suffered tremendously. Informal education was what the culture requires to train and prepare both men and women for survival. What is known as formal education was introduced to Nigeria with the advent of British rule and the coming of Christian Missionaries to Nigeria.

Christian Missionary Society (CMS) started both primary and secondary education in Nigeria. With this, even the girls that were opportuned to go to school got pregnant because of lack of self-discipline. They were forced to get married and this led them to bid good-bye to their educational careers. But the ugly trend and reluctance to send the girl-child to school because of cultural factors, which hither-to affected the growth of the girl-child education was checked as the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) activities started in Nigeria in 1948. According to Oyedeji (2001), “The RCM opened girl’s convent school in Abeokuta in 1886, St Agnes College Yaba Kebbi for the training of women teachers in 1933. Soon, there were schools for girls, both primary and secondary in some other parts of southern Nigeria”.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is no doubt the most widely accepted framework for action with respect to children. It is the most widely ratified human rights instrument. The CRC guides international efforts to identify the continual life conditions that put very young children at risk and pre-empt their healthy and optimum growth and development/education. The Convention can be used to actively promote the quality of care through policies and practices that young children need and are entitled to as part of their basic human rights (Angeles-Bautista, 2001). But twelve years after the ratification of the Convention and eleven years after the World Summit for Children, the Childhood Care Development and Education first presented at the OMEP Nigeria, 2001 National Conference, held at the University of Ibadan. The programme continues to face challenges. It is the duty of all those responsible for the care, development and education of young children to continue to remind governments and state parties of their obligations towards them (Bellamy, 2001).

Nigeria has ratified several human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its Optional Protocol on individual communications, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its Optional Protocol, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Nigerian child protection policy is rooted in the Child Rights Act, which President Olusegun Obasanjo signed into law in 2003 (UNICEF Nigeria, 2007). This defines all persons under the age of 18 years as children, outlining specific protections and prohibitions necessary to meet the mandate of providing all care necessary for child survival, well-being, education and development. The Act has been passed on a state level by 24 out of 36 Nigerian states (Defence for Children International, 2010). It covered child trafficking, child labour and child abuse, at the highest levels. A plethora of other policies and programmes, at national and international levels supplement this framework and provide tools for implementation.

Therefore, in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Child Right Act and Girl Child Education.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

The panacea of poverty, family disorganization and societal true development has suffered several sets backs over the years due to socio-cultural and economic factors. Till date, girls constitute the largest population of illiterate children worldwide. Extreme poverty, mass illiteracy, large scale ignorance, high maternal mortality and fertility rates, child wastages and lack of access to health, education and social services may sound far and fictional to many indigenes and visitors.

The problems of girl-child education have been in existence since the introduction of British rule in Nigeria. Parents were very reluctant to send their female children to school. This was partly because the traditional system of education often dictates that the place of the girl or woman in the society is in the home. Many children, who should be in school, particularly girls, were involved in unpleasant acts such as child labour, child abuse, child trafficking, prostitution and were all deprived from Child’s Rights Act decree law enforcement. More often than not, these children were subjected to inhuman treatment as some suffer physical abuse, economic exploitation and denial of opportunity to education. Most of them were under-fed and if they are fortunate enough to be in school, they are hardly given any time to play and rest properly.

Mohammed (2008) opined that most girl-children are engaged in either hawking goods on the street for their parents, and at some other times, the girl-children were engaged in early marriages as a result of parental poverty and financial problems where some parents cannot afford to pay school fees for their many children. In some families, parents who have many children select the boys and educate them, thus leaving the girl-children untrained and uneducated. Not only that, the girl-child has suffered enough discrimination among siblings and parents, and even the society and this has affected her education negatively. For instance, in many African traditions and customs, the girl-child is regarded as inferior to the boy-child, and this has made many African parents to devote more attention in training the boy-child than the girl-child.

The above identified problems, gave rise to the examination of the impact of child’s Rights Act on the education of the girl-child among students in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State, Nigeria.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to scrutinize the Child Right Act and Girl Child Education in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To examine the cultural-factors affecting the girl-child education in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State
2. To investigate the most perceived effects of lack of girl-child education by the students in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State
3. To find out whether students perceive the influence of child Rights Act on girl-child education in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State
4. To proffer solutions for implementing the Girl-Child’s Rights Act in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• What are the cultural-factors affecting the girl-child education in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State?
• What are the most perceived effects of lack of girl-child education by the students in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State?
• How do students perceive the influence of child Rights Act on girl-child education in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State?
• What are the solutions for implementing the Girl-Child’s Rights Act in Koko/Besse Local Government Area, Kebbi State?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

• H₀1: There will be no significant relationship between child’s rights act and girl-child education in Kebbi State, Nigeria.
• H₀2: There will be no significant gender difference in the education of the Girl-Child Due to Child’s Rights Act in Kebbi State, Nigeria.

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1.7 Significance of Study

Students would be able to find the results of this study very important for them to use as a guide towards their works on the issues concerning child’s Rights Act and Girl-Child education in Nigeria in general and Kebbi State in particular, especially students in the missionary secondary schools in the state. This is because the issues of the education of the girl-child are very vital issues that need to be paid attention to, due to the importance of the education of the girl-child in any Nigerian family.

The teachers in our secondary schools, especially in Kebbi State, would be able to see the outcomes of this study as very important because they would have correct insights about the importance of training the girl-child in the Nigerian families.

This study will be beneficial to the government, especially the Ministry of Education, because it will assist them to be in the-know concerning the important role the education of the girl-child play in any nation of the world, particularly in Nigeria and Kebbi State.

This study will be also be very beneficial to the society who will be in good position to have fair knowledge of the training of the girl-child in Nigeria.

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1.8 Scope of Study

This study examined the relationship between Child’s Rights Act and Girl-child Education in Kebbi State, Nigeria. The study covered all the teachers and students in the Missionary Secondary Schools in the Koko/Besse Local Government Area of Kebbi State, Nigeria. This study was limited to access for the panacea of the Girl Child Education, Missionary Schools in Kebbi State; it did not take into consideration the other crucial issues in girl-child education like retention and equity, enrollment, quality and achievement in school subjects. It’s also restricted to missionary schools in Kebbi state only. The major reason to conduct this research in only Kebbi state was due to time and financial constraints.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).