Out of School Girls in Nigeria: Implications for National Development

Education is a right for all children. Discriminating against either the boys or the girls has serious consequences for future national development. In Nigeria, there are alarming figures showing a large percentage of boys and girls of school age not attending formal education. The focus for this paper therefore is on the girl child bearing in mind the serious implications of not education them on the society. In 2019, 10.19 million children were found to be out of school and 38% of them were girls. Some of the factors attributed to this ugly situation in Nigeria are early marriage, early pregnancy, violence at schools, funding is targeted at boys, child/domestic labour, dangerous journeys to schools, kidnapping, poor sanitation in schools, dilapidated desks/chairs, few female teachers to encourage them to attend school, religious and traditional practices etc. The implications of not addressing these factors as identified in the paper will lead to slower economic growth and reduced income, gender disparity, child mortality rates in communities will soar, she cannot be a policy maker who influences national decisions and women will be less likely to have access to social protection. Finally, recommendations like adequate funding to the education sector, provision of enabling environment, create more awareness among rural dwellers on the need to enroll, retain and encourage the girl child to complete school, Girls4Girls and SHE4HE programmes of UNICEF be sustained, provision of adequate security for all children in and out of school were proffered.