Education stakeholders in Adamawa State, have during a session proffered solutions to the myriad of challenges impeding the enrolment of the girls in schools in the wake of the debilitating impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings by TheNewsHawk indicated that the incursion of the dreaded pandemic has led to a drastic fall of girls enrollment in schools with its attendant consequences on the future of the next generation.
In order to avert the looming disaster, Women’s Rights Advocacy Protection Alternative (WRAPA) in conjunction with Malala fund organized a one day workshop to develop a policy advisory for girls re-enrolment in Adamawa State.
The event took place at the conference hall of Adamawa State ministry of justice, Thursday.
During the interactive session, participants have developed high impact resolutions to address the scourge.
Some of the far reaching policy advisories adopted include; enacting laws against discrimination of girls who were impregnated out of wedlock and giving such girls the opportunities to go back to schools.
Others include provision of free education, school feeding and incentives in the form of uniforms, books and others for the girl child and provision of sanitary toilets and WASH facilities in schools.
The stakeholders also call on authorities to make stiff punishment for perpetrators of rape, trafficking of girls and dissuade any socio-cultural practice that scuttle the girls’ opportunities to remain in schools such as early marriage.
They also urged the government to evolve ways of empowering the people as poverty was identified to be one of the key factors bedevilling girls enrollment in schools.
The participants also urged the government to ensure that more schools are built especially in far flung areas as the stakeholders validated that in some areas, children trek long distances spanning several kilometers to access schools.
While thanking the stakeholders for their inputs, Adamawa State coordinator of WRAPA, Barr. Fatima Raji said the advisory will go a long way in prodding the government to take the right actions.
She noted that the purpose of organizing the workshop is to ensure the attainment of gender parity in education as enunciated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Raji added that statistics has revealed that girls constitute about 60 percent of out-of-school children in Nigeria a situation that is even worsened by the COVID-19 incursion calling on all hands to be on deck to resolve the serious malaise.
