About 7.6 million girls are out of school in Nigeria, with nearly half of them living in Northern Nigeria, a stakeholder in girl-child education, Malam Muhammad Auwal, has said.

Auwal attributed the situation to poverty, early marriage, harmful cultural practices and unsafe learning environments, which he said continue to hinder girls from enrolling in and completing school.

He spoke in Maiduguri at a training on “Improving AGILE–Media Cooperation”, organised by the Borno State Ministry of Education through the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) Project.

Citing data from the 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, Auwal said only 48.8 per cent of Nigerian girls attended lower secondary school.

He said girls also lagged behind boys in school attendance, with 69.7 per cent for girls compared with 86.1 per cent for boys.

According to him, the gap widened at the upper-secondary level, with a completion rate of 55.5 per cent for girls compared with 75.3 per cent for boys in 2023.

“The figures underscore the need for stronger interventions to ensure that girls have equal opportunities to access and complete their education,” he said.

Auwal urged religious and community leaders to promote the importance of educating girls and called for local awareness campaigns highlighting the long-term economic benefits of female education.

He also advocated adult literacy programmes to help mothers better support their daughters’ education.

“Literate mothers are statistically far more likely to prioritise schooling for their daughters,” he said.

Auwal further urged the media to intensify reportage and advocacy on girls’ education and the barriers preventing many girls from remaining in school.

Declaring the training open, Borno AGILE Coordinator, Engr. Ibrahim Baba, said the programme was providing “second chance” opportunities for girls who had dropped out to return to school.

Baba said AGILE was also constructing junior and senior secondary school blocks closer to communities to reduce challenges associated with distance.

He said more than one million girls had been engaged through life skills, financial literacy and digital literacy programmes designed to prepare them for the modern workforce.

“Over one million girls have engaged in core life skills, financial literacy and digital literacy programmes,” he said.

Baba said the intervention was helping girls develop skills for economic self-reliance while challenging social norms that place domestic responsibilities and early marriage ahead of formal education.

He said investing in female human capital would strengthen Nigeria’s economy by ensuring that its growing young population becomes a productive workforce.

The training consultant, Dr Musa Konduga, called for a change in parents’ attitudes towards girls’ education.

He urged governments in Northern states to adopt community- and family-based engagement strategies that would encourage parents to prioritise the education of their daughters.

Konduga also urged media practitioners and education stakeholders to use the knowledge gained from the training to strengthen reporting, advocacy and public awareness on girls’ education under the AGILE programme (Nigerian Tribune)