AREAi’s tech-driven programme helps Nigerian girls complete school

Nearly 20% of all out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa live in Nigeria. In Oyo state, poverty, high rates of gender-based violence, lack of female teachers, family preference for boys’ education and limited gender-responsive budgeting hinder girls’ ability to complete their education. With Malala Fund’s support, Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative (AREAi) are working with government officials and community leaders to help girls overcome these hurdles through advocacy, training educators, academic and career mentoring, and technology. 

Through their Getting Girls Equal programme and DigiLearns app, AREAi are supporting 30,000 girls to access quality education and aim to increase girls’ attendance and retention rates in 30 schools across Oyo state. We spoke with AREAi’s Chief Executive Director Gideon Olanrewaju about their work and the importance of helping girls access and complete their education. 

What motivated you to establish the Getting Girls Equal programme?

Sustainable Development Goal 4 emphasises the need to provide inclusive, equitable, quality education for all. It means that equity gaps, particularly when it comes to accessibility, must close. You can’t talk about quality when you are not talking about the provision of education in the first place. As an organisational leader, it was important to build a multi-layered intervention that allows us to address the traditional, communal and systemic barriers to girls’ education at a state level and the disparity between boys and girls’ enrolment and engagement within the educational system. 

The programme aims to strengthen the quality of girls’ education by implementing gender-responsive educational structures and policies across the school, community and state levels. What are some of the challenges you encounter in your efforts and how do you approach them? 

First, the institutionalisation of gender-responsive policies depend on government systems. And the people who are in charge of government systems are political leaders. If a political leader does not align with the vision, it would be very difficult to build momentum behind some of the interventions and programmes we design. Gender-responsiveness is an interesting and somewhat foreign concept to some of our political leaders. But with support from a resilient organisation, they can understand gender-responsiveness and how to operationalise it. 

Technical capacity is another challenge. We found that more than 70% of teachers in Oyo state —  teachers who have significant experience — do not know what gender-responsiveness means and how they can apply it to their daily activities within the conventional classrooms.

We've had more than 26 different trainings over the last three years with different teachers across the three senatorial districts. Professors who are very experienced in gender-responsive pedagogy assisted us in transforming the teachers’ knowledge to ensure that we have a well-rounded and skilled workforce in Oyo state.

Thanks to AREAi’s academic support, 28 out of 30 host schools recorded at least an 85% pass rate for female students in their West African Education Council (WAEC) exam results, compared to 67% the previous year. What is the impact you’re proudest of when it comes to the Getting Girls Equal programme?

The joy that we see on the faces of students who would not have to repeat their WAEC exams before graduating secondary school. It is a stage that defines a student's future within Nigeria’s education system. There is data showing that not passing WAEC at the first try means that many of these girls will likely not bother sitting for the exam again. It increases school dropout rates. Our after school mentoring sessions and the use of DigiLearns have contributed to many students passing WAEC excellently. 

AREAi uses advocacy and education technology solutions to help marginalised children in Nigeria access a quality education. What hurdles does AREAi encounter in supporting marginalised children?

To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we designed a mobile network-based learning solution to help students without internet-enabled phones and mobile connectivity access the conventional Nigerian education curriculum, research using Google or Wikipedia and connect with teachers. 

Word of DigiLearns’ effectiveness and utility spread across schools. Though our goal was to reach 10,000 girls across three senatorial districts, the volume of users we reached skyrocketed. By the end of the first year, we had seven times the estimated users. It was intentional to make the solution free because the last mile users we serve could not afford the platform if they had to pay for it. Thanks to Malala Fund’s support, we reached our primary beneficiaries but also our large population of secondary beneficiaries. 

Accessing hardware is another challenge. Some of the students we support in SS1 (grade 9) do not have access to mobile phones or basic feature phones like those in SS3 (grade 12) because of their age differences. We had to mobilise some of our stakeholders and members of our school governing boards to ensure that we can encourage parents to release their mobile phones when it is time for their kids to use them for after school or learning sessions.

How do you see the role of technology in helping girls go to and stay in school?

Having access to technological tools or digital technology can be the defining difference between a girl who will perform well and one who would not. It is why solutions like DigiLearns are very pivotal in the level of success we've been able to achieve through the programme. 

Technology can also be useful for collaborative learning within circles of girls — it could help them stay in school. It could also help facilitate other conversations that girls would not want to share in school but rather with their friends. These conversations include not only academics, but also about many other things like sexual and reproductive health, dating and other factors that are also connected to education. 

A key objective of the programme is to inspire girls to stay in school through academic and career mentorship opportunities. Why was it important to include a mentoring component?

An important factor of the programme is demystifying the complexities of certain career aspirations. Many parents’ limited knowledge confines children to micro boxes of either becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a banker or an accountant. Our school and alternative learning sessions allow us to foster their understanding about alternative paths. 

Thanks to our sessions, I noticed many of the students saying they want to become educational administrators. In Nigeria, you’ll rarely see people saying they want to go into higher education to study education. But if we are going to improve the quality of educational systems, you need professionals who are intentional about this process — including those trained in the discipline.

I knew that we were doing something right when we started with a class of 30 students and almost 28 wanted to become doctors, and by the time we were done with the school term, we saw that most students’ career preferences changed because they understood the different paths they can pursue.