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A research into girl-child education in Adamawa State has found that 441,126 school-age girls are out of school in the state for reasons that include insurgency, poverty, high rate of pregnancy or fear of it by parents, use of girls for hawking or domestic work, and apathy for the girl-child education.
The research report of a baseline study on a Community-led Collective Action for Girls Education (C-CAGE) in Adamawa State, presented in Yola, also indicated preference for Quranic education by families who view western education as being for Christians, and negative peer influence as other factors lowering rate of girl-child education in the state.
The C-CAGE research, which was commissioned by the African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) and supported by the Malala Fund, elaborated that endemic poverty could rubbish even free education for a girl at the point of an external examination requiring a fee.
Many girls, the report stated, drop out of school near the exit point, at JSS 3 or SSS 3, when it comes to registering for the final year external examination because there is no money for the registration.
The concern that a girl may get pregnant and end schooling prematurely, a concern heightened by prevalent pregnancy among teenage girls and subsequent ‘fatherless’ babies in virtually every rural community, was also identified by the report as discouraging girl-child enrolment, just as actual pregnancies among school girls force them out of school.
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And insurgency which forces many families, including their children out of their homes and schools and related fear of abduction by insurgents, also contribute to poor girl-child education profile of Adamawa State, according to the research report.
Other factors that the report identified include engagement of school-age girls for street hawking or domestic chores during school hours, calculation by some families that after all, a female child will end up as wife in the house of a man, as well as negative peer pressure that may discourage the educational pursuit of unwary teenage girls.
The report suggested free education which includes registration for external examinations, conscientising of communities to discourage early marriage and related indiscriminate sex that lead to unwanted pregnancies, prosecution of teacher or schoolmate who gets a girl pregnant, creation of counselling units to guide schoolgirls, among others, as ways to curtail girl-child education deficiency.
The baseline study on Community-led Collective Action for Girls Education (C-CAGE) was conducted in communities in Maiha Local Government Area (LGA) in Adamawa North Senatorial Zone, Numan in Adamawa South, and Song in the central part of the state, while statistics covering the entire state were obtained from relevant government ministries and agencies.
The acting Executive Director of the Centre LSD, Mr Monday Osasah, explained that the C-CAGE research was conceptualised to address the root causes of barriers to girl-child enrolment, retention and completion, and to recommend ways to change the narrative in Adamawa which belongs to the unenviable club of 10 northern states with the worst out-of-school children record.