THE IMPACT OF WOMEN’S EDUCATION IN ATTAINING THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NIGERIA’S ECONOMY
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
THE STUDY’S BACKGROUND
According to Richard Amayo, education is “a training that incorporates time, pain, lasting valves, cultural ideas, utility of experience that are geared toward the orientation of the mind to perform and exhibit such visible skill of change that are enduring and transferable.” Education can also be seen as the development of each unit of society in order to maximize his or her potential abilities and to enable one to fully contribute to the growth of that community and share its accomplishments based on risk. According to Milton, education is a complete and generous education that prepares a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously in all public and private offices of the peace and wa.
According to Fafunwa (1974), education is the sum of all processes by which a child or young adult develops abilities, attitudes, and other contributions to the society in which he or she lives. Education, according to Horne (1976), is an internal process of supervisor adjustment of the physically and developmentally free conscious. According to John Dewey (1944), education is a continuous reconstruction of experience in which there is development of immature experience which is founded with the skill and habits of intelligence.
Education allows individuals to develop abilities, attitudes, and acquire societal norms and valves. Education is the doorway to knowledge and growth for both individuals and nations. It is the most valuable possession that a person or individual can ever acquire, and it is the best legacy that parents can leave for their children.
The women protested their commercialization or being turned into consumer objects. They asserted that they have the resources to maintain and accelerate their social, economic, political, and educational status, and that their male counterpart misallocates these resources. Women are largely excluded from policymaking and other important positions in the public and private sectors in this country.
Education was provided as a right to both men and women in many developing countries, including Nigeria, during the post-independence period. If women are educated, they can contribute to national development. According to Achieve (1959), women have always been regarded as weak vessels, but they have consistently refused to fall behind in terms of education.
She stated that women have admitted to having overcome self-selection and mediocrity as a result of their exposure to the educational world. Instead of being a burden or liability to their husband, they will support and help the family to achieve greater heights, and their children will have more opportunities to be literate than those of the uneducated, which will help to increase the growth and development of the society and the country at large.
With education, women can participate in any field, political, socially, economically, religiously, and soon in politics, which was almost feared by men (male child) is now admired by women, even married women, because they are educated and carefully contribute to the growth and development of the Nigerian economy by being a politician.
Malam Kaita (1982) asserted that what a man can do, a woman can do as well, and that, aside from raising children in the proper manner so that they can match or fit into modern society, women have the opportunity and ability to contribute their talents and knowledge to the task of national economic revival for the country’s growth and development.
We must therefore encourage young girls (female children) and women with the necessary attitude to benefit from the fruits of education not only for their own self-improvement but also for the rapid growth and development of the Nigerian economy.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The bane for women’s education in Nigeria is enshrined in the country’s new national education policy, which states that!
“Special efforts will be made by ministries of education and local government authorities, in collaboration with ministries of community development, social welfare, and information, to encourage parents to send their daughters to school.”
The document’s primary education section contains the tacit (understood) reference to women’s education made in the national policy on education. It should be noted that no further reference was made to the provision of women’s education in this crucial document on education.
According to Nagess (1995), the lack of a policy statement on women’s education that has been reflected in the national policy on education (NPE) causes the NPE to fall short of women’s expectations and amounts to a total disregard for that segment of the population in this country.
The plight of women in education is exacerbated by parents’ negative attitudes toward female education. Some parents are hesitant to send their girl child to female education, particularly at higher levels, as their male counterparts are.
Another issue that is closely related to this is the girls’ reluctance to obtain western education and their own misunderstanding of the value of formal education. In education, equity means having equal access to high-quality education. According to Ocholi (2002), geography (location) and family wealth, as well as relative wealth, have been discovered to affect equity.
In Nigeria, for example, the net enrolment rate of girls in primary school is lower than the female literacy rate, indicating a regression (toward male, female education in balance) in basic education in recent years. According to Ocholi, in 1995, 25% of girls who should have enrolled in school did not. In 1995, the average primary school completion rates for boys and girls were 56.3 percent and 45.7 percent, respectively. Most girls drop out of school for a variety of reasons, one of which is a lack of funds.
It is an open secret today, however, that Nigerian women are educationally behind their male counterparts. According to the 1991 national population census, women account for 49.7 percent of the total population, with 70 percent of Nigerian women aged 35 and up being illiterate. Illiteracy is said to be three times as prevalent in rural areas as it is in urban areas.
Awe (1990) 10 identified three fundamental barriers as being responsible for women’s low level of development and enhancement, particularly in terms of educational advancement. These are the obstacles:
I Restrictions on educational opportunities
ii) A lack of desire to achieve and
iii) Opposition to women’s advancement within a patriarchal system.
Women’s limited access to education in this country is deeply rooted in history, religion, culture, the psychology of self, law, and political institutions. For example, it has been observed that Nigerian women lag behind their counterparts in developed and some developing countries due to a late start in educating them.
This is due to our hostile tradition and culture, which reduces women to kitchen manager eases and producers of babies, thus their ideal is expected to end in the kitchen, a condition which ironically is detested by many parents, discouraging their investment in girls-child education.
Another major barrier to women’s education is their unwillingness to aspire. This is the most visible manifestation of African erroneous socialization, which instills in women the belief that certain subjects and professions are solely the domain of men. Our socialization also limits women to specific roles (e.g. cooking, baby making, baby nursing, home keeping etc.).
This is unquestionably a negative outcome of the scientific discovery that women are not intellectually inferior to men. This is because both males and females have 42 chromosomes in their genes. Furthermore, science has revealed that there are no innate biological or psychological reasons why girls should not perform as well as boys when given the opportunity and adequate motivation.
Resistance to women’s advancement with a patriarchal system is another manifestation of our cultural practices that interact to hinder women’s advancement, particularly from an educational standpoint. Resistance is exacerbated further by cultural impediments imposed on women by traditional assigned roles such as housewife, mother, babysitter, member of inferior sex, stereotyped gender victim, and so on.
Thus, it is stated that the problems of resistance to women’s advancement are cultural in nature, as they include those caused by home work, conflict, ignorance on the part of many parents, the mistaken belief that religion is opposed to providing a sound formal education to the girl child, gender stereotyping and stigmatization, socioeconomic constraints, and poor attitudes of some parents.
It is important to note at this point that men in Nigeria have greater access to education than women, which has very negative consequences for the latter. Indeed, it has been observed that this unwholesome situation is the primary factor responsible for the preponderance of women lower positions in work organizations and less paid jobs.
For example, Oladunni (1999) observed that Nigerian women are found predominated in occupations such as teaching, nursing services, agriculture, small scale food, processing, and as a result, it has been opined that the majority of them are therefore poor improvised.
Other issues confronting women’s education in Nigeria include a lack of funds, inadequate facilities, insufficient manpower, sexual harassment, conflicting societal role expectations, government policies, and a lack of political will to implement the entire educational program.
The inferiority complex observed in Nigerian women can be attributed to the influence of environmental manipulation. For example, through the traditional socialization process of the typical African society, women are made to accept negative self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotyping, and stigmatization that they are members of a weaker sex. At the moment, the forces that combine to impede women education and development in Nigeria could be viewed broadly to include denial of the right to education, denial of the right to vote, de
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The need for women’s empowerment can only be met by providing adequate and functional education to women. This is critical because no matter how rich or vast a nation is, without an effective, efficient, adequate, and functional education for all citizens (men and women) that is relevant to its immediate needs, goals, and objectives, such a nation will struggle to stand on its own.
The type of education being promoted is one in which the spirit of self-realization is embedded, as well as all areas required for the country’s overall development, such as mass literacy and economic empowerment.
The need for women’s education is also informed by the fact that meaningful occupational achievement and satisfaction are ensured by deep self awareness and understanding, which can only be attained through the provision of effective and functional education, as well as guidance and counselling.
This, it has been noted, is likely to ensure women empowerment, with its roots based on women’s struggles to improve their status. The empowerment suggested is one that entails the process of challenging power relations and gaining greater control over the source of power.
This, however, cannot be accomplished without providing women with reasonable access to formal education; this is based on the premise that education has been determined to be a viable instrument of positive change.
In the spirit of universal basic education (UBE), formal and functional education for women is required because
I It would enable them to understand and demand their right to education, health, shelter, food, and clothing, among other things.
ii) It would empower them to fight against all forms of discrimination against their people and to assert their equal treatment with their male counterparts as genuine citizens of Nigeria.
iii) It would allow women to make decisions and accept responsibility for those decisions affecting them.
iv) It would provide women with economic power, allowing them to contribute their fair share to the nation’s economic growth.
v) It would scientifically empower women through exposure to science and technological education age and the challenges of current technology break through unfolding globally.
vi) It would assist women in reducing maternal and infant mortality through improved nutrition, child rearing practices, health care, and disease prevention.
vii) It would provide women with the opportunity to actively participate as informed citizens in the world of sophisticated policies and governance.
THE STUDY’S IMPORTANCE
This study will reveal the attitudes of women that impede their education, as well as the socioeconomic benefit of educated women in the country’s economic growth and development. Education will also be tailored to these issues in order to ensure equal education for men and women.
QUESTIONS FOR RESEARCH
The following research questions hung the study:
1) Does the attitude of teachers in schools disregard women’s education?
2) Does the education of the girl child (women) result in cultural breakdown?
3) Does your religion advocate for women’s education?
4) Does parental educational background influence women’s education?
5) Does the size of a family affect women’s education?
6) Does society support women’s education in order to achieve the country’s goals?
7) Does a woman really have low 1 Q, as described by men as “fish brain”?
THE STUDY’S OBJECTIVE
This study, which examines the impact of women’s education in Nigeria on the growth and development of the country’s economy, is limited to five secondary schools in Egor Local Government Area, as well as a sample drawn from secondary school teachers and educated and uneducated parents.
TERMS DEFINITION
Some terms in the research have meanings attached to them for clarification and to avoid potential confusion and ambiguity:
Attaining: To complete or complete something.
Development: To increase something or for something to change and become larger or take on a new shape.
Education: Systematic training and instruction, school for the acquisition of knowledge, skills, information, and so on by a more experienced individual, i.e. a teacher.
Income is the money that a person receives or earns as a salary, through sales, or through any productive venture.
Factors: Things that have an impact on a situation, event, or process.
Growth is the expansion of something in preparation for a new change (dynamism)
Culture: A person’s way of life in terms of religion, marriage, belief, art, music, and so on.
Someone’s attitude is a characteristic of their behavior.
Prevail: To overcome a problem or a barrier that stands in the way of achieving something.
Shallow brain: A brain that cannot assimilate deeply and quickly, or a brain that cannot reason/think deeply, or a brain that is indebted.
A community is a geographical location where people gather and live or a place where people can live.
Participate: To be a part of a man activity or to take part in carrying out specific activities.
Weaker vessel: This term refers to someone who lacks strength, might do something, or has little say in something.
Polygamous: A family in which a man marries two or more wives.
Upkeep is the process of keeping something or someone in good condition over time.
A philanthropist is someone who helps others in need, both financially and otherwise.
Women’s education is the type of education provided to women in order for them to obtain any formal education or knowledge and skills under the supervision of a school.
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THE IMPACT OF WOMEN’S EDUCATION IN ATTAINING THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NIGERIA’S ECONOMY