Women Participation in National Development in Nigeria: The Imperative of Education

Abstract

Women constitute an indispensable force in the quest for national development of any nation. In the developed nations, women have been able to play this important role. However, in Nigeria, women are still relegated to the background as they lack the educational, economic and political power necessary to actualize their innate potentials.  The paper examines the important place of women education in the empowerment of women to enable them contribute their quota to national development. The study relied solely on secondary data and this was analysed using content analysis. The paper shows that women access to education is still low as the gender disparity in the enrolment of women into primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions is widening over the years. These problems are further compounded by the high rate of girls’ dropout and failure among women that sat for ‘O’ Level examination. The implication is that many of them lacked the required minimum numbers of credits that qualify them to enrol or get admission into the tertiary institutions. The paper postulates that more pro-active actions need to be taken by the government and other stakeholders to ensure gender parity in education through special child girls education, scholarships and effective implementation of policies and programmes geared towards this.