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Relationship Between Child’s Rights Act And Girl Child Education
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Education is
one of the fundamental rights of individuals. Article 26 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly in December, 1949 stipulated that:
• Everyone has the right to education. This shall be free at least in the elementary and primary stages.
• Elementary education shall be compulsory while technical and professional education shall be made generally available.
• Higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
• Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children (Nwangwu, 1976).
Since
the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in
1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations has adopted numerous
treaties, declarations and conventions concentrated on human rights
including the right to education. The General Assembly refers most items
relating to human rights to its Third Committee, which deals with
social, humanitarian and cultural matters (Anynwu, 1990). The human
rights of children are fully articulated in one treaty: the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) offering the highest
standard of protection and assistance for children under any
international instrument. The approach of the Convention is holistic,
which means that the rights are indivisible and interrelated, and that
all articles are equally important. The CRC defines a "child" as
everyone less than 18 years of age "unless under the law-applicable to
the child, majority is attained earlier."
The World Summit for
Children also held in 1990 re-emphasized that all children should have
access to basic education by the year 2000 as well as increasing female
literacy. Following the World Convention on Education for the Female
Child (WCEFC), the Dakar World Education Forum (WEF) was held where new
sets of education goals were stipulated to be attained by the year 2015.
The goals include, amongst others, ensuring that all children,
especially girls, in difficult circumstances and from ethnic minorities
have access and complete free and compulsory primary education of good
quality; eliminating gender disparities in pre-tertiary education by
2005, and migrating to gender parity in education by 2015, with a focus
on ensuring girls full and equal access to basic education of good
quality. Similarly, the Millennium Development Goals 2 and 3 reiterated
the achievement of universal primary education and the promotion of
gender parity and women empowerment respectively. Based on the
developments, the Universal Basic Education Act (2004) and the Childs
Rights Act (2003) documented that Nigeria government shall provide free,
compulsory and universal basic education for every child of primary and
junior secondary school age.
Access to education for girls is also
affirmed in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed in 2000
following the Millennium Summit and intended to be achieved by 2015.
MDG2 is to "Achieve universal primary education" and MDG3 is to "Promote
gender equality and empower women". The girl-child education has been a
burning and continuous issue in the developing countries of which
Nigeria is one.
In spite of the fact that improvement and ordering of
access to education has been a major goal ofAfricanGovernment since in
the 1960s, the history of educational provision to date is a catalogue
of enduring inequality between boys and girls and men and women. Again,
though educational opportunities have indeed greatly expanded for all
children in Nigeria, there is still an under-representation of females
in schools, showing a disparity in educational access and achievement
widened to the growing disadvantages of females (Gender Training Manual,
1999).
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study examined the impact of girl-child rights on education in missionary secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. The descriptive research design was used in order to assess the opinions of the respondents using the questionnaire and the sampling technique. A total of 300 (Three Hundred) respondents (made up of 150 males and 150 females) were selected and used in this study as the sample of the study which represented the entire population of the study. Five research questions were raised ... Continue reading---
