Group Decries dearth of girl child education in Gombe community
Chima Azubuike, Gombe
A non profit organization, Dandalin Matasa Initiative for Rapid Development, on Saturday, said if adequate premium is not given to girl child education, there will be dearth of female leaders in near future.
Speaking at the formal launch of girls reflection circle, under project Critical Reflection & Education for Social Transformation (CREST) among Girls, the Executive Director, Bashama Yusuf, said the initiative is geared towards increasing enrolment among young girls.
The Executive Director stressed that this initiative involves relevant stakeholders through a baseline that comprised of head teachers, principals of junior secondary school, teachers to examine enrolment, completion status 15 years ago in selection process.
“The informal learning process is ongoing and it is community driven. It targets young girls between the ages of 9 and 16 years; 30 who are drop out and 30 others who have never attended school.
“This initiative is geared towards facilitating the process of peer learning; where they can be encouraged, motivated and inspired to get interested into going back to school for drop outs and for those that have never been to school the whole essence is to promote enrolment of girls into formal learning. We are happy we are getting the support of the community, the leadership of the community is solidly behind us.
“We had established 17 member community committee on girls education some are former teachers, some of whom are religious leaders, youth leaders, women leaders this committee assisted in facilitating enrolment, selection and the female facilitators who are supposed to run the process of incorporating the basic components of the manual which includes; healthy living, personal development, understanding civic education and self esteem,” Yusuf said.
He stated these at the palace of the Hakimi of Hashidu, Abubakar Adam, shortly after an official handover of 60 backpacks containing writing materials, books, and a uniform- veil to each participant with support from Development Exchange Centre, based in Bauchi.
According to him, the purpose is not only targeted at enrolment but retention and completion of education of the girls.
He said, “At the end of the day we want them to have high self esteem, so that they can confront life for self actualization. We chose Hashidu after our survey based on our previous engagement. In Hashidu, it may interest you to know there is no single female teacher as it is today and that is for us a serious concern. if you can have a community of over 300,000 to 400,000 population and you don’t have a female teacher, it explains the magnanimity of the problem.
While bemoaning the dearth of female teachers, which he said has affected interest of girl child to acquire education, he stressed that the initiative is committed to high level advocacy.
“So one of the ways we have adopted to solve the challenge is advocacy, so that the state government, through SUBEB. SUBEB can post female teachers, this will inspire young girls to be educated so that in the future we can have more teachers in the future. We call on government to see girl child education as a serious priority. If you educate a woman you educate the entire society and educating the girl child is a feat in development.
“We call on the state government to invest more in training female teachers and deploy them to where they are needed most so that these our young girls will find education interesting and will have educational accomplishments.it is important these young girls are motivated otherwise if we don’t find female young girls who are undergoing some intentional learning processes we may not find female leaders in the future which may not be good for the community.”
Also speaking, Chairman, community committee on girls education, Hon. Yahaya Hashidu said his committee will continue to partner relevant authorities in encouraging girl child education.
Hashidu who is a principal stated that previously young girls were withdrawn for marital commitments, stressing that awareness will be intensified towards outlining the advantages of education.
He said, “This is a good initiative, because it will create awareness on the importance of girl child education amongst community members. In our area most parents don’t encourage their children to go to school most especially the girl child. This will yield development for our community, usually parents withdraw their girl children early for marriage. So we want to discourage such through the support of religious and traditional rulers.”
On his part, State Coordinator, Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA), Abubakar Abdullahi lauded the initiative while urging government and the communities to provide enabling environment to encourage female teachers.
Abdullahi said, “This type of project should be encouraged in a community such as this. As you know this is a very good development towards empowering the girl child. However, government should increase what is being done currently I know there is Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA), working at the grassroots level they should come and enrol the girls to school so that they can become something in future. Government is doing well because there are structures but aside that we need more personnel. Teachers running from rural community should be encouraged to stay in rural community to help children in rural communities.
“There should be introduction of rural allowance to teachers so that it will encourage them to stay in the rural communities and the communities themselves need to find ways of assisting these teachers by providing accommodation something that will make teachers have zeal and feeling to stay. Government should look at the welfare of teachers with all the seriousness it deserves there are many teachers at the grassroots; you find situations where a teacher stays at a particular level for 10 and above without promotion. There should be intensive monitoring since they said education is free let there be a task force or monitoring team that will go round to ensure children of school age are in school.
“The civil society, government, people in the community are stakeholders in education. We should all come together and do the needful to see we improve standard of education in Gombe state, especially Gombe North where large number roaming the street not necessarily only women even boys.
Kudos to Dandalin Matasa. Weldone
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