“An educational programme for young girls in northern Nigeria that involved local religious leaders massively reduced the number of child marriages, a study reported in Nature today has found…
In the first year of the programme, out-of-school girls were offered accelerated learning in reading, mathematics, life skills and business skills in ‘safe spaces’ dedicated to them. In the second year, the emphasis was on ensuring that the girls return to school. Parents were helped with the costs of school fees and uniforms, and girls continued to have access to tutoring and mentoring in the safe spaces, which were like after-school clubs. Those who did not return to school were offered vocational training to work in local shops.
What is new about this approach is that the researchers tested its effectiveness in a randomized control trial. The researchers enrolled 1,181 adolescent girls from 18 communities in the states of Borno, Kaduna and Kano who were both out of school and unmarried at the start of the programme. The communities were divided into nine pairs: one community of each pair participated in the programme while the other did not. The involvement of local leaders helped the programme to recruit almost all of the girls that met the inclusion criteria in each community, Abubakar says.
The trial took place between 2018 and 2020, and participants were surveyed at the beginning and at the end of the programme. By the final survey, 79% of the girls participating in the programme were still unmarried, versus about 14% in the group that did not participate. This corresponds to an 80% decrease in the likelihood of marriage during the study period, the researchers say.”
From Nature.