Since 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) has been a global call to action for gender equality. It’s more than a celebration—it’s a reminder of the progress made and the work still ahead. This year’s theme, “#AccelerateAction – It’s Time to Turn Promise into Progress,” is a powerful challenge. It signals urgency. It pushes beyond words to real change. For women and girls everywhere, equality cannot wait. Now is the time to act, to break barriers, and to turn commitments into tangible results.
Education is central to driving gender equality, with investment in girls’ education having a profound ripple effect, transforming not just individual lives but entire communities, countries, and the world at large. However, in Nigeria, girls’ education, particularly in the northeast and northwest, still suffers setbacks. About 7.6 million girls are out of school, and more than 50% of girls are not attending school at the basic education level, (UNICEF 2022).
This IWD is another wake-up call for all stakeholders to step up and take action to ensure that women and girls are provided with the enabling environment to contribute to self and national development, and this is why gender responsive education is important.
What is Gender-Responsive Education?
Let’s speak about Amina, a 10-year-old girl in Takai, Kano. Amina loves science and mathematics, but when her teacher asked her to draw a picture of a scientist, Amina’s instinct was to draw a man. This wasn’t because she didn’t aspire to be a scientist herself, but because she had never seen a female scientist represented in her learning materials. For Amina, and many girls like her, the odds are stacked against them. Limited access to resources, societal expectations, and unconscious biases can erode their confidence and aspirations. But what if Amina’s teacher had been trained to challenge these stereotypes and biases?
Gender-responsive education offers a good approach to learning, one that identifies and eliminates gender bias and discrimination. It is based on the notion that all students, regardless of gender, should benefit equally from education and it aims to create inclusive learning environments in a way that all students feel valued, respected, and supported.
In a gender-responsive system, Amina would have access to:
- Learning materials that showcase diverse role models, including female scientists
- Teachers who encourage and mentor her, helping to build her confidence and aspirations
- A well-funded, safe and inclusive school to help her explore her interests and talents
- A supportive community outside school without fear of early marriage or violence
- A safety net through progressive government policies on gender equality
- A future where she can be anything she aspires to be and her opportunities are not limited because of her gender.
How has Nigeria progressed in Gender-Responsive Education?
Nigeria has made notable progress in gender-responsive education, with increased female enrolment being one of the key achievements. Government initiatives, donor-supported programmes, and advocacy efforts have contributed to higher literacy rates among girls. Policies such as the National Policy on Education and the Girls’ Education Project (GEP) have been instrumental in reducing gender disparities. Additionally, scholarship and mentorship programmes are helping to bridge the gender gap in higher education and technical fields. Civil society organisations have also played a crucial role in challenging cultural barriers through awareness campaigns, advocating for girls’ education, and addressing harmful practices like early marriage.
However, significant challenges persist, hindering the full realisation of gender-responsive education. A major issue is the lack of gender-responsive budgeting, which affects the allocation of resources for girls’ education. Nigeria’s ranking on the Global Gender Equality Index has declined over the years, highlighting the need for stronger financial commitments. Socio-cultural factors such as early marriage, household responsibilities, and financial constraints continue to push many girls out of school, particularly in rural areas.
Additional challenges include gender biases in educational content, security concerns, and weak policy implementation. Security threats, including kidnappings and attacks on schools, disproportionately affect girls, discouraging them from attending classes. Many educators also lack training in gender-sensitive teaching approaches, making it difficult to create an inclusive learning environment. While policies exist to support girls’ education, poor implementation and inadequate school infrastructure continue to hinder progress. Addressing these issues requires stronger enforcement of policies, better teacher training, and increased investment in safe and inclusive education for all girls.
How Can We Accelerate Action for Girls?
The UK-Funded Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria (PLANE) programme, is supporting the Federal and state governments of Kaduna, Kano, and Jigawa to ensure the provision of inclusive quality basic education to improve learning outcome and accelerate action for girls, so they can become women who will effectively participate in national development. In the last three years PLANE has:
- Advocated for increased female teachers enrolment, training and deployment in classrooms and boards of education, so they can act as role models to both our boys and girls in the classroom.
- Supported the federal ministries, agencies, and departments, Kaduna, Kano, and Jigawa States to develop policies, frameworks and strategies that promote equity, inclusion and safeguarding in education.
- Built capacity of key government education officers, community leaders and opinion leaders on strategies to ensure equity and inclusion
- Supported sensitisation and advocacy to decision-makers and opinion leaders at state and non-state levels
- Partnered with Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa State governments to implement state action plans that support acceleration of gender equity and the elimination of systemic barriers
- Built capacity and sensitised education sector workers on the importance of girls’ education and strategies to advocate for inclusion
This targeted support has kept the discussion of the challenges women face on the front burner, created some level of awareness and led to an increase in women’s participation within the education sector. However, for these gains to continue, there is a need for the state and non-state stakeholders to accelerate their action in the following ways:
Recommendations to Stakeholders
- Support actions that identify, recognise, and address the challenges girls face in accessing education
- Sustain, implement and track federal and state government’s policies, plans, and activities that promote equity, gender responsiveness and safety in education
- Ensure increased enrolment, training and deployment of competent teachers to underserved and rural areas, particularly female teachers
- Create a platform for increased female voices on discussions and decision-making processes in education administration
- Support gender disaggregated data driven reporting and communication for continuous strategic planning in education.
The challenges affecting girls’ education in sub-Saharan African countries and especially in Nigeria are multiple and overlapping. Hence, advancing girls’ education goes beyond enrolment, which is often the focus of most governments. To accelerate action is to shift the focus from just enrolment numbers for girls and prioritise building learning environments that truly support the holistic development of the girl-child, particularly those from underserved and rural communities, like Amina. By adopting a gender-responsive approach, we can all ensure that women and men benefit equally from education and that inequality is not continuously perpetuated.
