By EDDY OCHIGBO, Kaduna –
Stakeholders in the education sector, the leadership of Kaduna Basic Education Mechanism (KADBEAM), in collaboration with the media on Tuesday met in Kaduna to scale up implementation of strategies towards addressing barriers to girl education in the state.
NATIONAL ACCORD reports that girl education remains a challenge in Kaduna state, with numerous obstacles ranging from economic to social-cultural barriers, impeding school attendance of girls. Keen watchers believe that risks associated with school-going, are far more compounded for girls and young women in the state with the worsening in insecurity in the state.
The strategies being scaled up to address the impediments, were developed by Kaduna Basic Education Mechanism (KADBEAM), in collaboration with Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL), a governance program, being funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.
State Team Lead, Mr Abel Adejor, while reiterating that PERL has been supporting girl child education in Kaduna state, appealed to all stakeholders to continue to deepen and sustain the conversation on barriers to girl education, using various media platforms.
“The impressive turnout of participants for this engagement, testifies to the fact that we are collectively consolidating on the structures that PERL has initiated and the media remains key partners and the vanguard of social development in the sustained campaign to address the barriers to girl education”, Adejo remarked, commending those he described as Community Development Charter (CDC) champions for their relentless representation of the people at the community level in the campaign.
According to him, community-led advocacy to promote girl-child education is critical to ensure that girls have unhindered access to school for the attainment of their full potentials in life.
On his part, PERL Strategist and State Facilitator, Mr. Istifanus Akau maintained that although the Kaduna State Government has demonstrated the political will towards transforming the education sector, barriers to girl education were still evident.
He added that the meeting was put together to review specific activities in the media engagement strategy to create more awareness and influence behavioral change of negative barriers to girl education.
Mr Dangwa Martins of the Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development (CALPED) in his presentation, identified some the barriers to girl education to include: insecurity, lack of critical infrastructure, inaccessibility, socio-cultural and economic barriers.
Partnerships in the education sector, Martins said, have been successful at sustaining advocacy and influencing reforms for improved quality service delivery.
“Credible data should inform planning for sustainable investment in the sector by all stakeholders. Working as a closed pack has brought about significant results and there is so much more to be done to enroll the girl child in schools that are functional and safe. The barriers have been identified and recommendations have been made to help government address them”, Martins revealed.
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