Abstract

Umaru Sambo, Masai Abubakar and Ibrahim Abdullahi

Having acknowledged the effort of Nigeria Government, the international development partners and nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) in getting every child of school age into school particularly the girlchild, the gross enrolment rate (GER) compared to the net attendance/completion rate (NAR) particularly the gender parity is still much to be desired. In view of the above the researchers decided to use some few sampled schools in Bauchi state to find out what the situation is like. Girls who were lucky to have reached senior secondary school level, and were expected to remain in school up to completion time, and if there were withdrawals/dropouts, what could have been the possible causes of these? And what can be done to ensure that these girls at least complete their senior secondary education? At this level, it is believed that they would have been matured enough as well as have acquired some life skills to enable them face the challenges of the today’s society. Accordingly, A simple survey of school records (class registers) of students in two sets of two arms each in three (3) selected secondary schools was carried out and a Purposeful sampling of the three schools (two co-education and one single sex school) was used. Furthermore a focus group discussion was held with the vice-principal academy and the class teachers of the sampled classes in each of the schools. Samples of students were also interviewed on their opinions on the possible reasons for students dropped-out from school in each of the schools. Findings clearly show that in some core northern states, of which Bauchi is part, there is still problem with girl-child enrolment versus completion of secondary education in Nigeria.