All too often, girls who have their normal education disrupted as a result of pervasive poverty that forces them to drop out of school, early marriages and unanticipated pregnancies, communal displacements due to crises or violent attacks on schools, particularly in the North, have their educational pathways blocked for life and their potentials irreversibly trapped and aborted.
The commissioning of the rehabilitated Alternative High School for Girls, Agboju, Lagos State, by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is a commendable demonstration of a commitment to giving this category of girls who had dropped out of school another opportunity to resume learning, be equipped with new skills and have brighter chances of achieving success.
According to the Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Aisha Garba, the institution was rehabilitated through the UBEC Direct Intervention Programme and, apart from the provision of physical infrastructure, is designed to restore hope and create opportunities for girls and young women desirous of re-connecting with education.
The rehabilitated school is equipped with two blocks accommodating over 26 classrooms, laboratories for agriculture, physics and biology, a library and information and communication centre.To fulfill its unique purpose of enabling students to complete their secondary school education while also learning vocational skills to prepare them for careers and make them self-reliant, the school also has vocational workshops for cosmetology, garment-making, hair dressing, catering, and home economics.
UBEC is also to provide the school with a school bus and digital smart boards before the end of 2026.This is surely the right way to ensure Dr Garba’s affirmation that ‘A girl whose circumstances prevented her from completing her education should be given another opportunity. Every child deserves an alternative pathway to acquire the education needed to succeed in life’.
Girls with better education will certainly be able to more effectively utilise whatever intervention funds are made available to them to set up small businesses.
We join the UBEC executive secretary in commending the consistent support of the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, for the education of young women, even long before she attained her present status.Apart from providing these facilities, it is equally important that no effort be spared to reach girls in this category and rekindling their hopes in the possibility of continuing their education so that they can utilise the opportunity.
UBEC has announced that work on another such alternative high school is ongoing in Ikorodu, also in Lagos.Earlier, a similar institution for girls with disrupted education had been established in Bauchi State.
These efforts only scratch the surface of what is a very serious challenge and need to be considerably expanded and the rate of implementation accelerated across the country through closer collaboration between UBEC and state governments.It is estimated that there are approximately 7.6 million out-of- school girls in Nigeria.
Girls are particularly vulnerable to having their education disrupted due to such cultural practices as early marriages and pregnancies in many communities, especially in the North.
There is also the tendency in rural communities to prioritise the education of the male child to the neglect of girls who may be able to have an opportunity later in life only through initiatives like this.
However, boys can also be the victims of debilitating poverty, destabilising conflicts that displace communities or entanglement in vices like drug addiction or cult activities that disrupt their education.
They also deserve to be reached out to, redeemed from hopelessness and offered opportunities to receive an education and empowered to become productive members of society.