Of all the women in the world, Oprah Winfrey stands out. She is a perfect blend of the beauty and brain. Hers is the validation of the fact that the DNA of women is not wired to be an intellectual vegetable nor are her hands only meant to cook vegetables.
When compared with men on quality education, the woman can hold her own. Not only is she a living testimony to the fact that education makes a mind that knows, she is a life sample of the midas touch with which education mends a broken heart.
This touch was the torch with which she earned herself and carved a name for herself in the media profession. So much that The Time magazine of August 8, 1988 wrote this about her: “Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey’s swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for… What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humour and, above all, empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah’s eye… They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session.”
The Time narrative beautifully reveals the sad tales being told by the female gender. It is a revelation to the fact that Oprah, like her guests, and every other woman around the world, has had a sad story to tell. Behind these stories are the cases of all gender-related crimes and many other challenges confronting the girl-child. It therefore becomes essential for us to know what we are grappling with. Doing so would lead us seek a breakaway from the challenges of the woman.
This breakaway which we seek, and must continuously seek, is, however, deeply rooted in the challenges that confront the female gender. One of these challenges is the unequal access to education.
And if we must alter this story we must reverse this trend. Because by allowing equal distribution of education be the bedrock upon which the society is erected, we are one step ahead in laying the foundation of the society of our dream. Without aiming at education as a panacea aimed at bettering the lot of the girl child – and by extension the world – we are only erecting a castle in the air with the bricks of hallucination.
In spite of the important recommendations in Sections 18(1) and 42(2) of Nigeria Constitution, which guarantee the equal right to education, women in Nigeria are still groping in the darkness of unequal education. In fact, having ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in 1990, which provides that every individual shall have access to education, a wide dichotomy still exists between the men and women in Nigeria.
Last Thursday, Nigeria joined the world to celebrate the Girl-Child Day. But, the sad reality is that our country still entertains primitive stereotypes and archaic beliefs. Here, girls are still being seen as people not fit to be educated. Some people still believe, in this part of the world, that women are nothing but sex butterfly.
According to the World Bank, the female adult literacy rate for Nigeria is 59.4 per cent, a far cry from 74.4 per cent male literacy. The Central Bank of Nigeria took it a step further by establishing that the gender gap in literacy rates between boys and girls is 18.3 per cent, in favour of boys. In the Northern part of the country, it is sour story; 80 per cent of women in the Northeast and Northwest are illiterates. In fact, the ratio of girls to boys in Northern schools is put at 1:2. In some Northern states, the ratio is even 1:3. It is as bad as that.
Why are we here? Even though the breeze of civilisation has been blowing back and forth on our land, we are yet to detach our minds from some poor and primitive traditional beliefs about educating a girl. And like a deep scar that has refused to heal, our thoughts have continued to be at home with these beliefs. Until we are saved from this retrogressive trap, the girl child has no hope of being saved from this hydra-headed monster haunting her.
Poverty is another challenge fuelling this wildfire. Poverty in the land is profound. Hardly can average families make ends meet. In a bid to eke out a decent living, some family heads meet their end. And if education ever comes as an option in such families, the boy-child is ranked top of the scale of preference. It is this same impoverishment in the land that has continuously burdened children to play the role of bread winners even though are not of age.
How can we balance the equation? First, we need to go back to the source of the problems identified. Discovering this has revealed that the inequality in education has its root in our minds. So we need to unlock our minds from the way we view the girl-child.
The trap in which the mind of the people is entangled needs to be unknotted. We need collective reorientation that will make us drop the outdated notion of seeing the woman as only one thing. We can achieve this by embarking on mass orientation and campaigns, which would be available for people of all classes, ages, demographics, statuses and tribes. Such campaigns as #BuildUpGirls, Education for All (EDA) and #OneBookOnePen, which are currently afoot, are what we can key in and fashion our own template.
To obey this clarion call, religious organisations, media outfits, governmental and nongovernmental organisation have a key role to play.
The rural dwellers are mostly disadvantaged to have access to education. And because farming is their major profession, girls are deprived of going to school since they are needed in child bearing to produce large families. Therefore, aside the introduction of mechanised farming through trained agricultural extension farmers to rural areas, schools should be situated in rural areas; and the girl child should be availed the opportunity of being admitted.
Ensuring the girl child is educated is one brilliant solution to the many problems bedevilling the female gender. Ensuring the girl child is educated is bidding farewell to gender discrimination, societal stereotype, sexual molestation, child and maternal mortality rate, domestic violence, prostitution and poverty which have been preying on her for years. Educating her is also gifting the boy-child a suitable environment to thrive. And together, they can build a harmonious society.
Prophet Muhammad hit the chord when he said: “Educating the boy-child is educating a man; but educating a girl-child is educating a nation.” Judging from this, we can say, the girl-child deserves the preferential access to education. Educating her is educating the entire world. It all boils down to a simple logic: leaving the girl child uneducated would lead the nation to suffer. Educating the girl child would make the nation to prosper.
