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The Effect Of Formal Education On Nigerian Women’s Attitude Towards Family Planning
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1Background to the Study
Education
can be described as a dynamic activity which involves an orderly,
deliberate and sustained effort to develop knowledge and skills
(Olusakin, 1998). As Awoniyi (1999) puts it, formal education is a
process by which the human mind develops through learning at school in
stages from pre-primary through primary, secondary to tertiary
(university) institution. The present socio-economic situation in
Nigeria has made it obvious that the women must be given sound, formal
education as their male counterparts are given.
According to Lai
(1995), in the olden days, a woman had little or no status as a person
in her own right. In the Nigerian society, women were viewed as their
husbands’ properties, and as such, had no say in the affairs of their
own home. The women’s roles were basically those of taking care of their
husbands and their children, their in-laws, the family compound,
child-bearing and child rearing. Also, her place was believed to be
naturally, in the kitchen. However, only few people would deny the
functional roles of women in the larger society. Even through the
average Nigerian woman still performs her basic traditional roles as a
daughter to her parents, sister to her siblings, wife to her husband,
mother to her children, daughter or sister inlaw to her husband’s
family, she is economically viable, she contributes financially to the
up keep of the family.
According to Adiele (2000), the education of
the girl-child was not a common phenomenon in the traditional Nigerian
society before independence. In fact, her birth would not attract so
much celebration as that of the male-child, and depending on the number
of female children the mother had given birth to before her, the birth
of an additional girl-child could cause her mother her marriage. This is
still a major problem in some homes even among educated men.
Education
should be considered as a great line of defence for women faced with
life threatening situations that traditional life-styles perpetuate. It
opens the door to a lot of choices that are not found by tradition
(Nwagwu, 1996). Grange (1997) posits that education encourages shaping
one’s destiny. The situation of the educated Nigerian woman steps up
beyond the confines of motherhood and enhances the quality of life in
her family.
Therefore, incessant child-bearing places a woman in a
very weak position physically, economically and psychologically, yet
barrenness is viewed as a curse in the Nigerian society due to high
infantile mortality, the capacity to breed was much valued but advances
in the field of medicine have greatly increased the survival rate among
both infants and adults. According to Onyeanwu (2001), the incessant
child-bearing is therefore, no longer necessary, instead, it poses great
danger to the health of the mother and also increased family size that
cannot be supported with the family resources, especially now that the
Nigerian economy has nose-dived and the resultant effect of unemployment
among men in the society.
Therefore, to improve the living condition
of Nigerian families, the life of the women who are the cornerstone of
every household should be improved and the regulation of the size of the
regulation of the size of the size of the regulation of the size of the
nuclear family, through family planning, cannot be overemphasied (Lai,
1990).
There has been a lot of discrimination against the female
gender. In fact people just see them as breeding machines, in spite of
the availability of family planning. The dissemination of appropriate
and relevant information would lead to the acquisition of knowledge
skills and women empowerment. This can help in breaking the intractable
poverty cycle which many Nigerian families have come to be associated
with due to ignorance of family planning devices and the attitude of
many women towards the application of such devices.
According to
Halsall (1997), if women’s health and status remain poor, if their
access to land and other facilities continue to be limited and if they
continue to be held down by ill-timed or unwanted pregnancies, then the
societal development would be retarded.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]ABSTRACT The study attempted to investigate the effect of formal education on Nigerian women’s attitude towards family planning in Lagos State. The study also reviewed relevant and extensive literatures under sub-headings. The descriptive research survey design was employed in this study in order to assess the opinions of the respondents with the application of questionnaire and the sampling technique. A total of 160 (one hundred and sixty) respondents were selected as samples representin ... Continue reading---
