Achieving Gender Equality in Basic Schools in Rivers State: Implications for Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

This paper focused on achieving gender equality in basic schools in Rivers State: implication for sustainable development. The research was guided by four specific objectives and four research questions, as it adopted the descriptive design. The population for the study comprised of 304003 pupils from all public and private primary as well as 163358 students from all junior secondary schools spread across the 23 Local Government Areas of Rivers State. Numbering 2703 (primary) and 1034 (junior secondary schools), the entire population of 467361 learners was equally used as the sample size, since it was a document analysis. The instrument for data collection were the documents collected from UBEC based on their national survey 2018 which was duly validated by the experts in the field of educational management. The research questions were answered using simple ratios. The findings of the study revealed that more female children than male were enrolled in basic schools in Rivers State, with the highest enrollment in the urban areas. Unlike the national figure, the gender parity index for the state was slightly above 1.00 in both public and private basic schools. The study concluded that though enrollment of children into basic schools in Rivers State did not meet the projected figure, gender parity was achieved between male and female learners enrolled into basic schools therefore making the attainment of SDG 4 and 5 feasible. It was recommended among others that the government and all other stakeholders should work towards ensuring that the gap between out of school children of basic school age and those enrolled in schools is reduced and retention within the formal school system maintained.