Education is derived from the Latin words Educare and educere. Implicitly, they mean imparting knowledge into someone and bringing out the knowledge inherently in people respectively. It could be done formally or informally. In our present world, there is a backdrop in the education of the girl child. This is the sequel to the patriarchal system that is operated and more dominant in our African continent. Our aim in this work is to offer a response in a bid to offer a vaccine for this menace bedeviling our world.
Education is important, it is paramount, and hence the development of any society greatly hinges on the level of education it has. Be that as it may, we desire growth and societal development, hence we should not focus on educating only the boy child. The culture of not educating the girl child has long been and people adduce some of the following as reasons for such an inhumane act: poverty or insufficient funds for educating the girl child, that the girl child ends up in the kitchen as a wife, cooking for her family. These and many other given reasons have been proven to be fallacious and baseless.
It is pertinent to note that educating a girl child is tantamount to educating the whole family and the world writ large. The girl child is a human, as such she has moral standing and is in turn owed some moral obligations, educating her is one of such moral obligations. The girl child should be treated appropriately, humanely, just as is the case with the male counterpart. An aphorism goes thus, "when you educate a boy child, you educate one person, but when you educate a girl child, you educate a family and a whole nation." An empowered woman is full of strength, courage, intelligence, and knowledge which she passes on to her children and shares with the society.
There’s the culture of betrothing and giving out in marriage the girl child even while she is young tender in the “dry region of Nigeria,” children whose age are below 18, given out without an informed consent of which they incapable of giving, thereby depriving them of their childhood, of the life they can live and subjugating them to the life they should live. The girl child as a human is bequeathed with the fundamental human rights which encapsulates the right to live her life to its fullest and become whoever she wants to be in life for good of the society and this should not be taken away from her. Women's dream of becoming independent largely depends on education. Educated women like Dora Akunyili, Grace Alele Williams, Olufunmilayo Ransome Kuti, Oluremi Tinubu, Chimamanda Adichie, Ngozi okonjo Iweala, amongst others are intellectually more prolific. Women through employment can contribute towards the growth of the nation.
Girls should be treated at par with their male counterparts. There is a saying, "A son is a son until he gets a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life.” Usually, society thinks a son deserves a good education so that he can get a good job and support his parents in their old age, we are tempted to ask, ‘is a girl child incapacitated of doing the same?” Why not give her the opportunity to support her parents in their fragile age by giving her the means to do so? Why can't she be financially independent? Why can't she be equally educated and treated the same way as her male siblings? What is to be the essence of the girl child? Is she born for chores and being put in the family way? Has she have an independent existence and just to merely survive?
It often behooves us to understand that educating the girl child is tantamount to reducing the rate of prostitution, reducing the rate of child marriage, increasing educated generations, increasing their involvement in the political process, decreasing domestic violence, reducing human trafficking, reducing the rate of poverty, and sexual violence amongst others.
Conclusively, the girl child education is very necessary. It is an issue that cannot be overemphasized. Every child should be given the opportunity to be educated, irrespective of their gender, as both sexes can bring about equal growth and development to the society. Consequent upon our above submissions, we make bold to posit that this is not a feminists brouhaha, but a call for equity and not equality. There can rightly exist differences, but it should not contravene the fundamental human rights of the girl child.
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