The Minister of State for Education, Hon. Goodluck Opiah, has stressed the importance of
data to decision making, especially in the area of gender equality.
He said this during a National Dialogue on Education Issues in Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the dialogue has the theme: “Meeting the Data Challenge in Education; Achieving Gender Equality in and through Education and Leaving No One Behind.”
Opiah emphasised the importance of gender equality in contemporary dynamic world where every male and female must receive quality education for a better and progressive society.
According to him, Nigeria has thus, witnessed primary school attendance increasing from 61 per cent in 2016 to 68 per cent in 2021, with gender parity index in primary school increasing from 0.95 in 2016 to 0.99 in 2021.
He added that “if the country could successfully abridge the data gaps, the basic fundamentals for resolving so many issues would have been provided.
“We need to embrace the use of data in guiding all our decisions. It is often said that data is to planning, while oxygen is to living.
“If we can successfully abridge the data gaps in Nigeria, we would have provided the basic fundamentals for solving so many issues.
“Credible, timely and reliable data generation is required for quality planning and decision making.
“Strategies to deal with this issue are on and the ministry is collaborating with relevant stakeholders in dealing with data challenges.”
The minister said government at all levels with stakeholders’ collaboration would continue to pursue investments to achieve positive outcomes.
He commended the effects of the Knowledge and Information Exchange (KIX) hub to strengthen the learning assessment systems through its programme in strengthening early childhood care and education.
The education Permanent Secretary, Mr. Andrew Adejoh, said effective data collection and analysis would ensure the attainment of goals and how to review the goals and aggregate same for different purposes.
Adejoh, who was represented by the Director of Basic Education, Dr Folake Olatunji-Davies, also emphasised the importance of data to ensure both boys and girls were included in the education sector. He said “this would provide equal opportunities to education, be it formal or informal.
“It is important to mention here that the concept of gender includes both males and females, because the thinking of most people whenever the term “gender” is mentioned is that it concerns only the females.
“Addressing gender in any endeavour requires that we make conscious efforts to collect gender data, which is systematically included as variable at the moment of collecting data on individuals.
“Today’s contemporary world has shown that both males and females contribute meaningfully to development. It is important to ensure inclusiveness by providing equal opportunities to receive education.”
He, therefore, called for credible, reliable and timely data to increase efficiency and enable the country to determine priority areas.
On his part, Dr. Quentin Wodon, the Director, International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), Addis Ababa, said “gender inequality reduces women’s expected earnings and their human capital wealth.”
Wodon said gender inequality had contributed to the lack of educational attainment for girls and a high prevalence of child marriage and early bearing.
“This leads to high fertility rate and high population growth, reducing per capita national wealth and preventing Nigeria from reaping the
benefits of Demographic Dividend (DD).
“In Nigeria, women human capital wealth is at only 35.7 per cent of the value for men (women are expected to earn only slightly more than
one third of what men are expected to earn).
“In Nigeria as in most other countries, human capital wealth is the largest component of national wealth, accounting for two thirds of national wealth in 2018.
“While national wealth has increased since 2010, it has not increased enough to compensate for population growth, leading to decline in per capita wealth from 31,067 U.S. dollars in 2010 to 28,622 U.S. dollars in 2018, (a loss of -7.9 per cent from the base).”
He, therefore, urged government to promote gender equality to increase educational attainment for girls.(NAN)
