Her Voice, Her Vision: What Girls Want in Education” is more than a collection of essays; it is a manifesto of hope and a charter of demands written by young women navigating Nigeria’s education system today. It captures their unfiltered realities and aspirations, offering policymakers and stakeholders a direct line to the voices that have too often been excluded from decision-making. From Kaduna to Imo and Edo State, these essays chronicle the challenges girls face and the possibilities that emerge when they are truly heard.
For too long, decisions about girls’ education have been made for them, not with them. This publication shifts that narrative, placing the voices of girls at the centre of Nigeria’s educational reform agenda.
Nigeria currently faces significant challenges in education funding, exacerbated by a pronounced gender gap that disproportionately impacts girls. Despite progress in increasing basic education access, Nigeria still holds the unenviable status of having more out-of-school children than any other country, with about 18.5 million children currently out of school according to UNICEF. Worryingly, the dropout rate for girls in both primary and secondary schools is higher than for boys, often due to intertwined issues like poverty, child marriage, inadequate female teachers, and gender-based violence (GBV).
