A History of Girl Child Education in Borno State, Nigeria 1935 – 1960

Abstract

This study examine girl child education in Borno State from 1935 to 1960.  The survey research design was adopted for the research work.  The girl-child education has faced so many challenges in the path to acquire education, among which are financial constraints, ignorance and non-challant attitude of parents toward knowledge seeking by female gender, hawking and house chores, early marriage, non proximity to schools around residential areas and lack of enough school infrastructure and finally ineffective, government policies and programmes.  Both primary and secondary sources of data were used for the analysis of this study.  Oral interview and questionnaires were used to elicit information as regard to the primary source, while textbooks, Journals, Pamphlets, Magazines and Internet materials served as the secondary source of data.  The findings revealed that towards the end of colonial regime, there was a monitoring pressure by the Northern Provinces to catch up with the educationally advanced Southern Nigeria.  There was serious negligence of women in particular in enrolment into western education during the colonial period.  Enrolment to these girls schools at this early stage was still done forcefully because the parents feared conversion on their children.