Arising from the findings of this
research which reveals that there are still little traces of discrimination of
educational opportunity against the girl child. The following are recommended
in order to close the gap completely:
·
Importance of the
education of the girl child should be stressed, by providing free educational
opportunity for her. This will encourage parents who still complain about
financial constraints.
·
Campaigns
conversing the importance of female education by radio programmes in Unity FM
and various NGO’s women organizations etc should be strengthened and extended
to the rural communities where the action is, rather than urban areas where a
lot of improvements have already been made.
·
All forms of
discrimination on Job opportunities against the educated female must be
discouraged. Women should be allowed to perform the same job, earn the same
salary and enjoy every other privileges with their male counter parts, since
experience has shown that what a man can do a woman can also do. From the researcher’s
review of literature, it was captured that most educated women who were given
opportunities to serve in very high places performed much better than their
male counter parts.
·
However, it is
high time libraries and information centers got involved in the campaign for
the girl-child education.
·
Government should
come up with laws that will discourage exploiting the women sexually or in
other forms before giving them job, admission in schools or passing them in
exams. All these practices sightens the belief that educated women are either
harlots or morally corrupt. Zero tolerance is therefore recommended against he
perpetrators of these unholy acts.
·
More career
guidance counselors should be trained and employed to advise the girl child and
their parents on the importance of sending the girl child to school. The common
saying that “if you train a male child, you train a single individual, but if
you train a female child you train a nation”, should be properly explained and
understood by everybody. This will erase the other gender insensitive statement
that the education of the women ends in the kitchen”.
·
Women leaders in
various spheres of life should come up with affirmative actions to fight
against discriminative practices and policies against the female child. It is
often said that women are there own worst enemies, so women should come up with
strategies that will enable them accommodate each other. There should be
alliance building between women groups and other organization fighting against
wall forms of marginalization of women.
·
Lastly,
government as well as Trade Unions should picket organizations including banks
that are becoming notorious in employing women just for the sake of making
money, thereby assigning unholy roles to them, that will predispose them to
involve in acts that will discourage women from fulfilling their marital
obligations particularly that of child bearing and maternity rights. It has
also been established that some employers of women ban them from becoming
pregnant for not less than two years of their employment. Government should
condemn in strong and practical terms all those draconian employment conditions
that will justify those socio-cultural or religions beliefs that education
exposes women to immoral conducts. Education should be seen to be developing
overall well-being of every human being without discrimination to sex or
gender.
Flowing form the findings of this
research, I have no doubts in my mind that parents are fastly realizing the
importance of the education of the Girl-child. It is true that there are still
packets of discrimination against the girl child but this is diminishing along
with more parents acquiring basic education. Similarly, with the increasing
number of educated women distinguishing themselves in the public service,
private establishments and politics in particular, parents will be left with no
doubts that education of women is of no less importance than the education of
the man.
It is on this note that I find it
difficult to conclude this research without appreciating that the struggle for
the human and educational rights of the women and its attendant successes did
not translate into a different socialization for families and communities.
It is against this background that Sonia Pressman
Fuentes in October 2007 captured it is her key note address at the women’s
lawyers of Utah retreat, USA thus: “In October 1965 – I found myself in a brand
new job at a brand new agency with responsibility for fighting employment
discrimination, including that based on sex. At that time, few Americans were
aware that there was such a thing as sex discrimination. When I mentioned
“women’s right” in my early speeches, the response was laughter. Words like “sex
discrimination” hadn’t yet entered that nations vocabulary.
What was our country like in 1965?
Basically men and women lived in two different worlds. By and large a woman’s
place was in the home her role was to marry and raise family. If she was
bright, common wisdom had it that she has to conceal that brightness. She has
to be attractive, but not too attractive. She has not to have career ambitions
although she could work for a few years before marriage as a secretary. Sales
woman, school teacher, telephone operator, social worker, librarian or nurse.
Hopefully, she would be a virgin when she married. When she had children, she has
to raise them differently so that they too, would continue in the modes of
behaviour appropriate to their sex. If she divorced, which would reflect poorly
on her, she might receive an award of alimony and child support. Although it
was unlikely that she would actually receive the monies for more than a few
years if she fails to marry, she was an old maid, relegated to the periphery of
life. Married women could work outside the home only if their household
finances required it. Under no circumstances were they to earn more money than
their husband. They were not to be opinionated and assertive.
Men on the other hand were the
decision makers and activities. They were the ones who went to school, became
president, legislators, Generals, police chiefs, school principles and
corporate executives. Man were expected to take the initiative in dating, to
have sexual experiences before marriage, to propose marriages, to bear the
financial burden for the entire family and to have little or nothing to do with
running of their households or raising their children.
This very long but irresistible
quote concludes this research and should at the same time serve as a food for
thought. It supports the researcher finding that even though there remain
traces of discriminatory practices against the education `of the girl-child
across cultures the world over, the story will soon change for better.
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