At a glance: Niger

Real lives

More school girls needed in Nigerien classrooms

Azel, a sun-scorched community of 2,800 people, lies on the southern border of the Sahara. Its school, built in 1956, is one of the oldest and most important in the region. Raicha is a fifth-grade pupil there. "I wanted to go to school to learn French and to help my parents," said the soft-spoken schoolgirl.

Raicha is lucky. She is enrolled in the Azel public school where more than half of the 218 students are girls. Her school is an exception in a country where only one in three girls goes to class. Education remains a privilege in Niger, especially for girls.

In a country where 83.5 per cent of the population is illiterate, only a minority of children, boys or girls, attend school. The primary school enrolment rate has been on the upswing since the year 2000, but it has not reached beyond 50 per cent.

Although the Niger Ministry of Basic Education and Literacy has opened 1,000 schools since the year 2000 and public education is free, only half the villages in Niger have a school in them; and only one in four schools offers a full, six-year elementary-level programme.

The lack of schools is only part of the broader problem of poverty in Niger, where almost two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line.

Early marriage hinders girls’ education

In Niger, tradition and societal expectations often hold back girls from obtaining a basic education. Fathers are especially reluctant to send their girls to school, often seeing it as a waste of time and money. Mothers are also reticent because daughters are especially useful at home – looking after their siblings, herding animals, fetching water and preparing meals. 

In some cases, parents marry off daughters at the youngest possible age in the hope of obtaining a sizeable dowry - the younger the bride, the larger the dowry.

Most girls marry at 15, the minimum legal age of marriage in Niger, but many are virtually forced to take a husband before puberty.

It is not unusual for parents to marry off their daughters when they are only nine years old - a union that is consummated when the girl reaches puberty. These early marriages have significant consequences, especially on girls' health and education.

Learning in a local language

According to education specialists, pupils would get better grades and stay longer in school if they were able to study in their own language. In 1998, the government adopted a bill calling on schools to use Niger's eight "national languages."

By 2003, however, only one per cent of schools were bilingual. Much remains to be done, especially since there are practically no books or school texts published in the national languages.

According to James Dobson, head of the education section at UNICEF Niger, much also remains to be done at the political level.

"The government has to show its resolve to decentralize the system so that communities run their schools themselves," he said. Such a decentralization process, he argued, should focus on gender equality. So that no teacher will ever again be able to enter a classroom saying: "Are there no girls in this class?"