Despite pledge by Kano State government to improve girl education, enrollment of the female child is still very low. Assistant Editor Seun Akioye visited a Kano community where parents are however desperate to educate their girls
The motto of Government Girls Arabic Junior Secondary School, (GGAJSS) Tundun Fulani in Ungogo Local Government Area of Kano State is written at the entrance to the school in white chalk against a black background, which the principal, Mallam Mustafa Tijani Imam, is proud to show off.
“A drop of tears in the eye of a girl is enough to destroy us; girl empowerment is the key to a developed country; end of girls indicate end of life! If you want your life, start saving and educating girls.”
Imam is very proud of this motto which he carefully crafted himself and had written at a conspicuous space for the benefit of every visitor. Even though the words are self-explanatory, he takes greatpride in explaining again.
“Our girls are the most important in this world, if you destroy a girl by not giving her an education, you have destroyed yourself. I tell you, a single tear in the eye of the girl can really destroy us, so we ensure that our girls are educated,” he said.
Majority of the elders of the community agreed with Imam, after all, the GGAJSS is a recent addition to the eight primary schools which littered the dusty and dry village. Three years ago, following a tragic incident, the elders decided to wipe the tears off the eyes of their female children.
For many years, successive governments have tried to solve the problem of female education in Nigeria especially in the Northern states.
According to a study as far as 2003 by the Federal Ministry of Education Sector Analysis Study, gender disparity in school enrollment in favor of boys are endemic in 15 northern states including Kano.
Also, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) reveals that at least 4.7 million Nigerian children are out of school with about one to three boys in gender parity in the north.
In a report UNESCO noted that “Another challenge in Nigeria is the issue of girls’ education. In the North particularly, the gender gap remains particularly wide and the proportion of girls to boys in school ranges from 1 girl to 2 boys to 1 to 3 in some States.
“Another cause of low enrolment, especially in the North, is cultural bias. Most parents do not send their children, especially girls, to school and prefer to send them to Qur’anic schools rather than formal schools.”
But the Kano state government said it is ready to tackle the challenges facing girl-child education in the state. The government pledged to continue to improve girl-child education.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje government has already included summer school programme in its 2017 budget to continue to promote enrollment and retention of girls in the School system.
A cruel death
At every hour of prayer, the voice of the muezzin could be heard very distinctively on Adamu Street, Tudun Fulani community in Ungogo.
Men ran out of their houses, making their way to the community mosque which is presided over by Lawal Muhammed, the chief Imam of the community. Tudun Fulani is a small community tucked away in an obscure corner Ungogo, though the community is only a couple of miles from the capital city, it is an ancient community devoid of almost all trappings of modernisation.
The people of Tudun Fulani could not be said to be averse to modern education however, every girl child who manages to complete the primary education is sent off in early marriage irrespective of her age.
“It is their tradition in this community, they like to give their children away early in marriage, but it became justified because there is no secondary school around this community where those who finished from primary school may go,” a teacher said.
Then tragedy struck. In 2013, a 13-year-old girl, Nasir Yakub struggled to deliver her first child and died. It was a death shook the community to its very roots; the elders came together and decided to build a secondary school. This would achieve the purpose of educating the girl child and also prevent them from getting married early.
The elders of the community were trying to prevent the incidence of early marriage, they recognized that because the children have nowhere else to go after primary school, getting married becomes an attractive option, so they came together and began to build this school, they could not complete it so they asked the local government for help to roof it, then they employed me,” Imam said.
A small beginning
The idea of a secondary education did not initially please everyone in the community and Imam spent his first two weeks sitting alone in the uncompleted building which is to serve as the citadel of higher education in the community.
“I spent the first two weeks alone here,” Imam began with a smile. It was a painful recollection which however is compensated for the increasing success the school has since recorded.
On the third week, the principal began to knock from house to house imploring parents to send their girls to the school. The chief Imam, Muhammed and other elders joined in the daily evangelism throughout the community.
At the end of December 2013, there were 23 students in the school. It was a modest achievement which comes with other challenges. With no furniture in the school, the students sat and wrote on the bare floor and there was an urgent need for additional teachers.
Imam requested for a teacher from the local government and “an Arabic teacher was sent,” he said. By the resumption in 2014, more students joined and before the end of the term the population had increased to about 150 students.
“ We needed staff badly and help was not forthcoming, then student volunteers started to show up, members of the community who are in the universities or College of Education will come and teach the students, at the end of the month, the community pays them N3,000,” the principal said.
Then one day a man walked into the school from a non-governmental organisation called Mercy Corps and offered to introduce a project which will increase the skills and potentials of the girls.
The new project tagged: Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprise (ENGINE) was designed to increase the capacity of the students in academics, vocational training and life and entrepreneurial skills.
ENGINE designed school activities that will be showcased in the community like the Champions Day.
“That was when people in the community realised that the girls are changing for the better because the girls showcased the skills in cooking, handiwork and academics they had learnt from the ENGINE programme,” Imam said.
The improvement in the girls who could barely read just one year ago impressed the community, it impressed the Kano State Education Board also as the school scored a perfect 100 percent in many of the subjects in the last Basic Education Certification Examination (BECE), a result Imam was proud to show off.
The students were also organised into clubs where they were able to discuss important issues pertaining to life and education; they also contribute at least N50 every week towards a common purse. Currently, the saving box has in excess of N15, 000, a huge sum in Tudun Fulani dusty community.
“Girl child education was our problem, but the ENGINE project trained our teachers and students and the results are evident,” the principal said.
The next one year was a period of increasing growth as the school witnessed increased enrollment and population soared from 150 to the current 650 students.
“The girls want to come to school, but there is no space”
Mallam Sanusi Hashim stood in front of GGAJSS crestfallen; he has just received unpleasant news which was proving too difficult for him to accept.
“ I have three girls that I want to bring to school but they are telling me that there is no space for them anymore,” he said.
Hashim was not the only parent to be turned back at the GGAJSS in recent times; they were many as the school currently has no capacity to accommodate the increasing number of girls who are ‘desperate’ for education.
“ Well, what can I say, there is no more space in the school, we cannot take any more girls here, we are stretched beyond our limit,” Imam said.
Since the ENGINE project began, the school has faced what Imam called a “good problem.” With only three classrooms available, students have been forced to sit on the floor with Junior Secondary Class 2 having more than 200 students in a class.
“ We urgently need to expand,” Imam said. The community leaders recognised this fact too and work has begun to add another block to the existing building. In the meantime, the Chief Imam of the community also made available the premises of the community mosque to be used as classroom for Junior Secondary School 1. The mosque has played a prominent role in the affairs of the community, apart from feeding the spiritual yearnings of the people, it has also been one of the voices which campaigned for girl-child education.
“When this school started, I usually preached to the people to send their girls to school, when there was a need for classroom, I offered the premises of the mosque,” Muhammed said.
There is one overriding philosophy the Chief Imam lives by: “ If you educate a girl, you educate a nation,” he said with an expression of defiance.
The girls expected no luxury as they sat under the tree to engage in the day’s pursuit of knowledge. “We don’t know what to do when the rains come, we don’t know where to keep these girls during that season,” Imam said with sadness.
Nunjali Ali Nasidi is the headmaster of Tudun Fulani Special Islamic Primary School which is directly opposite the GGAJSS. The condition of learning is a major concern to him as his school is a direct beneficiary of the secondary school.
“This year alone, 250 of my primary school students graduated to this school, so what we do is that when we close at 12 noon, we would open the premises of our school for use for the JSS1 students, I agree this only partly solves the problem,” he said.
There is also the issue of teachers, out of the 16 teachers in the school, only three are paid by the government, the rest receive a stipend of between N3,000-N5000 monthly from the community.
In Junior Secondary 3 class, over 100 students sprang to attention and greeted the visitor in impeccable English. Despite the poverty of their environment, they showed enthusiasm to pursue education.
“ We are very happy coming to school, we have achieved a lot especially after the ENGINE project came to our school, our self-esteem has improved, we have registered for our national identity numbers and we have opened bank accounts,” Suwaiba Sunusi, a girl ambassador said.
To demonstrate this new found self-confidence, Suwaiba read an essay on the importance of the family in flawless English to the class.
Back to the beginning
However, with every progress made by the junior secondary school, there is a corresponding problem. More than 50 percent of the students who wrote the junior secondary examination do not proceed to senior secondary.
“Most of our graduates do not proceed to senior school because of the distance, they usually pass the examination but because they are posted to very far local governments they rather stay at home. Now, it seems we are back to the first problem we tried to solve with the establishment of the junior secondary,” Ibrahim, a volunteer teacher, said.
The chief Imam said the only solution is to add a senior secondary school to the community.
“I am appealing to the government and anyone who can help rebuild the school, buy another land around here to come to our aid, we cannot allow our girls to sit at home without education,” he said.
So what is the solution for the expansion of the school? The principal believes that there are two options, one is to increase the current block by one storey and the other “ is to purchase a land opposite the street and build a new school.”
The land Imam speaks of is massive, over one acre which currently serves as the local football field for members of the community, but the land also holds a dark secret: It was the community burial ground over 70 years ago.
“ We don’t mind, we will build the school on it if the government can help us, right now it is being used as a playing ground, let us do something worthwhile with the land,” Imam said
