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Relationship Between Child’s Rights Act And Girl Child Education
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Primary
education started in Nigeria in the 1840s with the advent of the
missionaries and the traditional system of governance. The traditional
rulers and chiefs who had the direct contact with the colonialists were
very reluctant to send their children and wards to the early schools
established because they were not sure of the motive of the British.
Instead, the traditional rulers and chiefs sent children of slaves and
others who were' serving them as house-helps to these schools. It was
after these; slaves became literate and were employed by the
missionaries as clerks and interpreters that it dawned on the
traditional rulers that it could after all be beneficial to send their
children to school (Adeleke, 1997).
According to Ayodele (2000), the
traditional education in Nigeria is such that the girl-child is made to
understudy her mother while the boys are made to also understudy their
fathers in their chosen professions. The expectation therefore, was that
the culture of the people never encouraged the girl-child to do more
than help out in cooking food and doing other domestic chores. Over time
therefore, everybody imbibed the culture and the girl-child education
suffered tremendously. Informal education was what the culture requires
to train and prepare both men and women for survival. What is known as
formal education was introduced to Nigeria with the advent of British
rule and the coming of Christian Missionaries to Nigeria.
According
to Awolowo (1981), education is that process of physical and mental
culture whereby a man's personality is developed to the fullest. To him,
an educated man is one whose personality is fully developed, he never
feels inferior to anyone, no matter the colour, stature or strength of
such a person or individual, he or she is self-reliant, and will resist
any form of embarrassment until the last breath in him is exhausted.
Fafunwa (1979: 26), defines education as 'the aggregate of all the
processes by which a child or adult develops the abilities, attitudes
and other forms of behaviour which are of positive value to the society
in which he or she lives, that is to say, it is a process of
disseminating knowledge either to ensure social control or to guarantee
rational direction of the society or both.
Over the years, the
girl-child has been grossly neglected (Oleribe 2002). Girl-child are
left out in decision-making, utilized at homes without due
remunerations, kept as home keeper and never allowed to earn a living
for herself used by men as wife, by children as mother, by other women
as house-girl and by men as bed-mate (Fishel, 1998; Oleribe, 2002;
Sarwar and Sheikh, 1995). She has never ever been given a chance to make
her own choices.
According to Ebigbo and Abaga (1990), in Nigeria,
the rate of child abuse and child hawking has assumed a worrisome and
alarming proportion. He further noted that in Ibadan, Ondo and Ogun
metropolis, it is a daily occurrence to see children, especially the
girl-children below 14 years, hawking wares and other products along the
roadsides thereby depriving them going to school.
Christian
Missionary Society (CMS) started both primary and secondary education in
Nigeria. With this, even the girls that were opportuned to go to school
got pregnant because of lack of self-discipline. They were forced to
get married and this led them to bid good-bye to their educational
careers. But the ugly trend and reluctance to send the girl-child to
school because of cultural factors, which hither-to affected the growth
of the girl-child education was checked as the Roman Catholic Mission
(RCM) activities started in Nigeria in 1948. According to Oyedeji
(2001), "The RCM opened girl's convent school in Abeokuta in 1886, St
Agnes College Yaba Lagos for the training of women teachers in 1933.
Soon, there were schools for girls, both primary and secondary in some
other parts of southern Nigeria".
The Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) is no doubt the most widely accepted framework for action
with respect to children. It is the most widely ratified human rights
instrument. The CRC guides international efforts to identify the
continual life conditions that put very young children at risk and
pre-empt their healthy and optimum growth and development/education. The
Convention can be used to actively promote the quality of care through
policies and practices that young children need and are entitled to as
part of their basic human rights (Angeles-Bautista, 2001). But twelve
years after the ratification of the Convention and eleven years after
the World Summit for Children, the Childhood Care Development and
Education first presented at the OMEP Nigeria, 2001 National Conference,
held at the University of Ibadan. The programme continues to face
challenges. It is the duty of all those responsible for the care,
development and education of young children to continue to remind
governments and state parties of their obligations towards them
(Bellamy, 2001).
Nigeria has ratified several human rights
instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and its Optional Protocol on individual communications,
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on
the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) and its Optional Protocol, and the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC). Nigerian child protection policy is rooted in
the Child Rights Act, which President Olusegun Obasanjo signed into law
in 2003 (UNICEF Nigeria, 2007). This defines all persons under the age
of 18 years as children, outlining specific protections and prohibitions
necessary to meet the mandate of providing all care necessary for child
survival, well-being, education and development. The Act has been
passed on a state level by 24 out of 36 Nigerian states (Defence for
Children International, 2010). It covered child trafficking, child
labour and child abuse, at the highest levels. A plethora of other
policies and programmes, at national and international levels supplement
this framework and provide tools for implementation.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study examined the impact of girl-child rights on education in missionary secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. The descriptive research design was used in order to assess the opinions of the respondents using the questionnaire and the sampling technique. A total of 300 (Three Hundred) respondents (made up of 150 males and 150 females) were selected and used in this study as the sample of the study which represented the entire population of the study. Five research questions were raised ... Continue reading---
