CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Primary education started in Nigeria in the 1840s with the advent of the missionaries and the traditional system of governance. The traditional rulers and chiefs who had the direct contact with the colonialists were very reluctant to send their children and wards to the early schools established because they were not sure of the motive of the British. Instead, the traditional rulers and chiefs sent children of slaves and others who were' serving them as house-helps to these schools. It was after these; slaves became literate and were employed by the missionaries as clerks and interpreters that it dawned on the traditional rulers that it could after all be beneficial to send their children to school (Adeleke, 1997).
According to Ayodele (2000), the traditional education in Nigeria is such that the girl-child is made to understudy her mother while the boys are made to also understudy their fathers in their chosen professions. The expectation therefore, was that the culture of the people never encouraged the girl-child to do more than help out in cooking food and doing other domestic chores. Over time therefore, everybody imbibed the culture and the girl-child education suffered tremendously. Informal education was what the culture requires to train and prepare both men and women for survival. What is known as formal education was introduced to Nigeria with the advent of British rule and the coming of Christian Missionaries to Nigeria.
According to Awolowo (1981), education is that process of physical and mental culture whereby a man's personality is developed to the fullest. To him, an educated man is one whose personality is fully developed, he never feels inferior to anyone, no matter the colour, stature or strength of such a person or individual, he or she is self-reliant, and will resist any form of embarrassment until the last breath in him is exhausted. Fafunwa (1979: 26), defines education as 'the aggregate of all the processes by which a child or adult develops the abilities, attitudes and other forms of behaviour which are of positive value to the society in which he or she lives, that is to say, it is a process of disseminating knowledge either to ensure social control or to guarantee rational direction of the society or both.
Over the years, the girl-child has been grossly neglected (Oleribe 2002). Girl-child are left out in decision-making, utilized at homes without due remunerations, kept as home keeper and never allowed to earn a living for herself used by men as wife, by children as mother, by other women as house-girl and by men as bed-mate (Fishel, 1998; Oleribe, 2002; Sarwar and Sheikh, 1995). She has never ever been given a chance to make her own choices.
According to Ebigbo and Abaga (1990), in Nigeria, the rate of child abuse and child hawking has assumed a worrisome and alarming proportion. He further noted that in Ibadan, Ondo and Ogun metropolis, it is a daily occurrence to see children, especially the girl-children below 14 years, hawking wares and other products along the roadsides thereby depriving them going to school.
Christian Missionary Society (CMS) started both primary and secondary education in Nigeria. With this, even the girls that were opportuned to go to school got pregnant because of lack of self-discipline. They were forced to get married and this led them to bid good-bye to their educational careers. But the ugly trend and reluctance to send the girl-child to school because of cultural factors, which hither-to affected the growth of the girl-child education was checked as the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) activities started in Nigeria in 1948. According to Oyedeji (2001), "The RCM opened girl's convent school in Abeokuta in 1886, St Agnes College Yaba Lagos for the training of women teachers in 1933. Soon, there were schools for girls, both primary and secondary in some other parts of southern Nigeria".
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is no doubt the most widely accepted framework for action with respect to children. It is the most widely ratified human rights instrument. The CRC guides international efforts to identify the continual life conditions that put very young children at risk and pre-empt their healthy and optimum growth and development/education. The Convention can be used to actively promote the quality of care through policies and practices that young children need and are entitled to as part of their basic human rights (Angeles-Bautista, 2001). But twelve years after the ratification of the Convention and eleven years after the World Summit for Children, the Childhood Care Development and Education first presented at the OMEP Nigeria, 2001 National Conference, held at the University of Ibadan. The programme continues to face challenges. It is the duty of all those responsible for the care, development and education of young children to continue to remind governments and state parties of their obligations towards them (Bellamy, 2001).
Nigeria has ratified several human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its Optional Protocol on individual communications, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its Optional Protocol, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Nigerian child protection policy is rooted in the Child Rights Act, which President Olusegun Obasanjo signed into law in 2003 (UNICEF Nigeria, 2007). This defines all persons under the age of 18 years as children, outlining specific protections and prohibitions necessary to meet the mandate of providing all care necessary for child survival, well-being, education and development. The Act has been passed on a state level by 24 out of 36 Nigerian states (Defence for Children International, 2010). It covered child trafficking, child labour and child abuse, at the highest levels. A plethora of other policies and programmes, at national and international levels supplement this framework and provide tools for implementation.