The educational system of Nigeria encourages every citizen of the country to attain even the highest level of education as long as they can afford it. The government has not made education free, making it expensive for many individuals to afford. Due to this fact, we have a lot of out-of-school children, and it also hinders many from attaining a higher education after their secondary or first degree.
There was a period when everywhere in the world had no or little regards for women, having to leave them with the responsibility of taking care of the house hold and children and not allowing them contribute significantly in the society and social gatherings at large, women till date are not allowed in some churches to mount the pulpit or serve in the church, they are mostly regarded as followers, having no right to lead in the church in any capacity, same thing goes on I the mosque where females are kept separate from men and are not seen to call prayers, read the Koran or preach in the Mosque during Jumaat prayers.
While all these are still happening, we have advanced to a period where everyone has the right to attain the highest level of education to which he or she so desires so as long as one can afford it. In the part of the world I am from, it is surprising to note that education has become very expensive. I have seen a lot of people drop out of school because they cannot afford to pay fees.
The society still affects some people who are not literate enough and are tired to the believe that the only role of a woman in the community is the role she has in her husband’s house, and as such, find it as a waste of resources to send the woman child to school to a certain level of education, these parents will rather spend what they have to train the male child and ignore the female child.
Where I have resided for a while now, I came to know a family who has 3 female children and the last child is a male. Their parents sent all three female children to public school while sending the male child to a private school, giving him a better and higher-quality education than his sisters.
At the time when the children where suppose to resume for senior class, they where unable to resume because of lack of funds which to me translates to the importance the parent gave to the education of these girls, doing all they can for the boy child making sure that he always goes to school but will ignore these girls and most days, when they can, they go to school hungry if they don’t see someone to help them with something to eat while the boy child always eat before leaving and has something else to eat during the day.
The second child has stayed a year at home because they claimed not to be able to afford a hundred and fifty thousand naira to register her for her senior secondary school education. It came as a surprise to find out that a government-owned school will charge such a huge amount of money for registration into secondary school. I could remember during my days how my parents wear paying as little as six thousand nine hundred naira only as my fees for the term and we were not charged any penny for registration into the senior class after my junior secondary school examination, despite the being a boarding school where we were feed three square meals and were also provided with accommodation, which was supposed to be more expensive.
For the ratio of girls to boys in school, I will say from my experience that we have more girls in school then girls, in all my classes, the population of the girls always surpasses the population of the boys, even when I was opportune during my service year to teach for a year, the population of the girls in my call were always more than the population of the girls.
In the end, the only limitation that could prevent any individual from attaining the highest education the individual so desires is not gender based but a financial construct, not being able to afford education due to the cost and its expensive nature, which has become worse in recent times, is the only barrier to attaining education.
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