Education is an all-encompassing word that refers to the process of imparting knowledge or skill to a person through a teaching or tutoring process.
Girl Child Education is an enlightenment or awareness process that gets rid of the illiteracy of the girl child. It is an action or process of imparting skills and knowledge necessary for the growth of the girl child to sophisticate her and create value in her.
Consider this scenario: Ada is an intelligent girl but she was raised in a very rural area. She has financially struggling parents who only managed to sponsor her through primary education. She is 14-years old but has yet to get into secondary school and because of their poor financial condition, her parents are prepared to give her hand out in marriage in the following year. This means that she will have to forfeit her education.
I agree largely with those who say educating a girl child helps her make informed decisions because it truly does. The schooling environment exposes the child to a lot of information necessary to build her up at various stages in life.
But first, educating the girl child is impacting her with knowledge and the right information about who she is as a woman and all she can do and become to add value to her life and society and increase her self awareness and esteem.
This involves bringing her to the knowledge of things in order to influence her positively and good choices such as primary, secondary and tertiary education help move her toward this knowledge.
These good choices will include things like:
- Acquiring skills (vocational and soft skills)
- Refusing early marriage, thereby avoiding the consequences involved of early marriage and childbirth.
- Providing opportunities for leadership and contributing to solving problems in society.
Educating a girl child is a form of empowerment as it invariably equips the girl child with leadership abilities, leadership positions, values, training, networking and a lot more. An educated girl would rather go to school and earn a living than oblige to an early marriage influenced by wealthy and advanced suitors.
More also, an educated girl is aware of who she is and what she can do to change the wrong narratives around her. Education brings this understanding.
Investing in a girl child education is creating an opportunity for women leaders with the likes of women such as Chimamanda Adichie, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Aisha Yesufa, Tara Durotoye, Folorunsho Alakija and the long list of women shaking the world and solving problems in our society.
In summary, girl child education will undoubtedly increase the self-esteem of young girls and women. It will reduce the occurrences of Gender-Based Violence such as rape and abuse. It will increase a woman’s knowledge about her health status, right nutrition and dieting, and partner compatibility
Girl child education would help young girls manage their homes well and become role models to the younger generation of young women.
If we continually give thought to the girl child education, we would in effect give effort to ensuring education for all.