FG urged to implement policy on girl-child education

Plan International Nigeria has called on the Federal Government to implement policies that would promote girl-child education in the country.

Gift Zagi, the gender equality and social inclusion at Plan International, made the call at a forum to commemorate the 2024 International Day of the Girl-Child with students from FCT Senior Education Board (SEB).

Zagi said there was a need to recognise the barriers that girls face around the world while focusing on the lack of representation in the global development agenda.

She said the 2024 theme: “Girls’ vision for the future”, was aimed at conveying the need for urgent action and persistent hope, driven by the power of girls’ voices for the future.

“In terms of law and policies, Nigeria is doing well in girls’ education, because we have Child Rights Acts which makes education compulsory for all children in Nigeria.

“However, when we come to the implementation of these laws and these policies that we have, you can see that Nigeria is performing poorly.

“This is especially because we have challenges that affect girls’ ability to go to school. There’s the financial challenge, and we know the state of the economy now, it’s not very friendly.

“So when parents are thinking of how to cut down costs in their family. They can’t feed themselves. How would they now take their children to school?

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“So obviously, that automatically means that girls are not going to school, then we can talk about the facilities that are in school for girls”, she said.

Samuel Victor, programme manager, Action Against Child Sexual Abuse Initiative, said the legislative system should help in facilitating laws that would be to the advantage of girl-child education.

Victor argued that if the right policies are put in place to aid the education of the girl-child, their rights would be protected in every aspect.

“Our legislative system needs to go back and check the laws that concern and pertain to the girl-child because most of our laws are not strong enough to uphold the girl-child.

“Even the existing laws are not properly implemented. So this has limited the space in which the girl-child can thrive.

“If our policies are strong, we won’t have the girl-child involving herself in child labour and child marriage,” he said.

One of the participating students, Whino Epeno, an SS3 student of Santa Virgo International Academy, called on teachers and parents to instil self-esteem in the female students so they could speak out when faced with challenges.