A REVIEW OF KANU’S “IGWEBUIKE AS A COMPLEMENTARY APPROACH TO THE ISSUE OF GIRL-CHILD EDUCATION”

Résumé

While education for development has been a growing trend in many African societies spurred by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other national and international policies on education, the education of the girl-child has lagged behind in relation to the opposite gender. In some sections of the African society, noticeable improvements have been recorded within the past two decades while some are still negligent of the education of the girl-child. For example, the female adult literacy rate from the early 2000‘s to the middle of the decade spiraled to nearly 80 percent. Yet this growth was not evenly distributed across the various ethnic regions of the African society. Northern Nigerian women, for example, still had a ratio of 47 percent of women educated or in education as opposed to 67 percent of men. Even where women find educational opportunities, gender stereotyping often limit the potential areas of study they could pursue.