Access to education is a fundamental tool in fighting poverty and vital to meeting the Sustainable development goals (SDGs). JWCA is therefore priorities this including tackling the gender disparity. We therefore have a slightly but not exclusively focus on girls.
One of the worst impacts of poverty is illiteracy and its vicious cycle of churning out more poverty. The lack of access to education due to poverty prevents children from gaining essential literacy skills.
When parents are illiterate or unemployed it can contribute to low levels of education & they may not understand the value of education. The literacy rate of Nigeria is estimated at just 59.6% (CIA World Factbook (2015-12-31).
Cultural and religious expectations further put a strain on the female child in particular, in accessing basic education where it is generally expected that girls should marry early and raise families.
Low levels of education are usually driven by factors such as child labour, where children are engaged in work instead of attending school. Nigeria alone has 10.5million children ‘out-of-school’ and 60% of those are girls (UNICEF) with Niger and Sudan having the lowest levels globally.
