Cultural and Socio-economic Status Factors Affecting Female Education in Sokoto State, Northern Nigeria: Implication for Counselling

Despite Nigerian government’s initiatives such as Northern Education Initiative (NEI), Girl Education Project (GEP) and Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in bridging the massive educational gap between males and females in Sokoto state it remains one of the states with high illiteracy level due to cultural and socio-economic status factors affecting female education. The study investigated the attitudes of parents towards female education and cultural and socio-economic factors responsible for low enrolment and recurrent withdrawal from school. Simple survey design was used, population of 800 students from Women centre for continuing education (WCCE). A sample of 260 students was drawn using Krejcie and Morgan table. Attitudes of parents towards female education questionnaire (APTFEQ) with a reliability of 0.76 and effect of socio-cultural and socio-economic factors on female education questionnaire (ESCSEFFEQ) with 0.84 reliability were the instruments used in collection of data. The study found out that parents have negative attitude towards female education and poverty is the major reason for low enrolment of female students and recurrent withdrawal. Early marriage, gender inequality, religion, child labour and uneducated parents also contributed to such situations. Recommendations were that government should provide free education to females, provision of job opportunities to reduce poverty rate and public awareness campaign on the importance of female education. Female counsellors are required to counsel female students to be successful Academicians in their society. Counsellors should organize conferences and use such forums in conversing with parents about the importance of female education as the major implications for counselling.

Abstract Despite Nigerian government's initiatives such as Northern Education Initiative (NEI), Girl Education Project (GEP) and Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in bridging the massive educational gap between males and females in Sokoto state it remains one of the states with high illiteracy level due to cultural and socio-economic status factors affecting female education. The study investigated the attitudes of parents towards female education and cultural and socio-economic factors responsible for low enrolment and recurrent withdrawal from school. Simple survey design was used, population of 800 students from Women centre for continuing education (WCCE). A sample of 260 students was drawn using Krejcie and Morgan table. Attitudes of parents towards female education questionnaire (APTFEQ) with a reliability of 0.76 and effect of socio-cultural and socio-economic factors on female education questionnaire (ESCSEFFEQ) with 0.84 reliability were the instruments used in collection of data. The study found out that parents have negative attitude towards female education and poverty is the major reason for low enrolment of female students and recurrent withdrawal. Early marriage, gender inequality, religion, child labour and uneducated parents also contributed to such situations. Recommendations were that government should provide free education to females, provision of job opportunities to reduce poverty rate and public awareness campaign on the importance of female education. Female counsellors are required to counsel female students to be successful Academicians in their society. Counsellors should organize conferences and use such forums in conversing with parents about the

Introduction
Education is the process of impacting knowledge through teaching and learning. It is every child's right to be educated whether male or female. With these the significance of education is paramount; this is the reason why 1 necessitates that every Nigerian child is entitled to equal right of been educated irrespective of gender. Nigeria is operating on 9-3-4 system of education [2][3] . That is 6 years in primary school and 3 years in junior secondary school, 3 years of senior secondary school and 4 years in the university 4 . Nigeria has 30 million students however, this does not tally with the attitudes of parents in northern Nigeria especially in Sokoto state, towards the enrolment of their female child into schools. Nevertheless, People usually accept that it is dreadful to foresee the future with precision 31 . Thus, it is certainly possible to predict possible results given past and current situations which are significant to build on the achievements and avoid the hindrances recognized in the past to advance the future 32 .
Cultural and socio-economic factors were found to be the major factors affecting female education 11 . Cultural factors are; cultural practices such as (early marriage, child labour, gender inequality) religion and fragility [12][13] . Based on previous study 10 child brides are much more likely to drop out of school and complete fewer years of education than their peers who marry later. This affects the education and health of their children and their ability to earn a living. Female children especially in the rural areas are sent to the cities to work as house maids or hawk goods on the streets 15 . These keep them away from school either not enrolled or withdrawn to do such labour 5,14 . Researcher 7 added that some females are allowed to start school but will later be withdrawn due to socio-economic or socio-cultural factors. Researcher 9 reported that there are nearly double as several males graduating from schools as related to females. The major and critical problem of the state for decades is poor female enrolment and recurrent withdrawal 7 . Female child is seen to belong to another family, because of marriage. Some parents send the female child on early marriage so that they can use the dowry to train the boy. Misinterpretation of religious belief is used to deny the right of female children to get education. The general slogan is that "women's education ends in the kitchen" 10 . Gender inequality; females are not given equal rights with the male children, because they are seen as inferior to them 11,16 . That is why there are overburdened with house chores to give the males the opportunity to go to school 17 . Their religious belief is that the females shouldn't be taught by a male and be a classmate of male 18 . There are against the dressing due to absence of hijab in uniform structure 19 .
Poverty, uneducated parents, low socio-economic status parents, unemployment are the socio-economic factors 12,16 . According to 22 poverty remains the most significant factor determining whether a girl can have access to education. Example, in the state, only 4% of poor young women can read, compared with 99% of rich young women in the South Eastern Nigeria 22 .Researcher 23 asserted that high rate of poverty has heightened the situation, because with little resources males are educated and the females are left out of school. According to researcher 11 about 79.9% of the parents in the state are illiterates, making them to be ignorant of the importance of female education. It is preferred that the medical personnel that attend to female patients should be females and the parents are being made aware 23 . "The government is creating awareness that unless you allow a girl-child to go to school, you may not have the doctors, nurses and teachers you need to assist the community 23 . Female children from high socio-economic status parents tends to be educated over there counter parts 14 .Researchers 2,12 reported that every day, girls face barriers to education because of poverty, cultural norms and practices, poor infrastructure, violence and fragility.
Educating females reduced poverty. It brings health awareness which in turn prevents HIV/AIDS, STDS, unwanted pregnancies, nation building and reduce infant mortality death, 17 . In general, educating female is just like educating the whole nation. Because there are the home builders where charity begins, a nation will never grow without better foundation. Government brought up necessary interventions and initiatives to tackle such menace. These include; formulation of government education policy 30 : Northern education initiative (NEI), Girls Education Project Phase (GEP3); This gives the parents of the female child money as stipend in order to allow her to go to school), creation of WCCE that provides second chance to women who might have dropped from school, to continue from basic education up to secondary level. Provision of 3 girls only boarding schools, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Universal Basic Education (UBE) and Sokoto State Vision 20:20 policy; to reduce the rate of dropout/withdrawal especially for girls by 48% to 20% by 2020 8 .
Sokoto State is one of the northern states with highest illiteracy rate especially for females, with just one female professor in the whole state 5 8 . While Withdrawal ratio is 1:4.17 One of the reasons for this is that the state feared exposure to western education especially for girls, claiming that it would interfere with the cultural and religious beliefs of the people due to the curriculum in use, even though that has not been the case 10,20 .Researcher 5 stated that is why Quranic schools are given preference. Mixing matured males and females in school is against the Hausa culture and religion 21 . Fear of the female child being raped or becomes pregnant; these are the reasons why the females are kept in purdah or married off early, to avoid ruining the family's image 22 .

Statement of the Problem
The wide gap between male and female enrolment rate is quite alarming. The female is seen as a burden and she belongs to another house. Some females are sent to child labour just to get money for the education of the male sibling. Some will start schooling but will later be withdrawn for some reasons, while others are given the access to Quranic schools but no formal education. These produce lesser number of female professionals. So, this

Materials and Methods
The study applied simple survey method. According to 11 descriptive simple survey allows a researcher to select sample from the population for the purpose of generalization. Cluster sampling and purposive sampling were applied in selecting Sokoto state (core-northern state).
The total population of the study is 800 students in WCCE. Using 24 table, sample size of 260 female students was drawn. Simple random and proportionate sampling were used to get the sample from each class. Two questionnaires were adapted as the instruments namely; i) Attitudes of parents towards Female child education questionnaire (APTFCEQ) 16 : It contained 11 items based on Yes and No. The instrument opted coefficient of 0.76 as the reliability with content validity. ii) Socio-cultural and socio-economic factors effect on female child education questionnaire (SCSEFFCEQ) 5 : It contained 11 items. The reliability coefficient was 0.84, using Pearson moment correlation coefficient and was found to be valid.

Findings
Research Question 1: what is the attitude of parents towards female education. To know the factors responsible for recurrent female students' withdrawal, first is to know the recurrent withdrawals at each level of education (primary-senior secondary school)   Table 1 findings indicated that parents in Sokoto state have negative attitude towards female child education, because the agreed has the highest percentage. This finding was supported by previous researchers 19,25,16 which reported that parents have negative attitudes towards their female children's education in Sokoto. Researcher 26 had dissimilarity with present finding, where they found positive attitude of parents towards female-child education in Edo state. Table 2 shows that 8.1% of the respondents are dropouts at primary level, 25% dropout after primary(not furthering to secondary school level), also 30.8% are withdrawn at junior secondary and 36.1% at senior secondary school; all these dropouts are due to either early marriage, unwanted pregnancies, misinterpretation of religion, poverty and, uneducated parents, gender inequality or child labour.  29,30 reported bad governance, poor infrastructure and funding of the educational sector as the factors responsible.

Conclusion
Conclusion was reached based on the findings, that parents have negative attitudes towards female education in Sokoto State. Cultural and socio-economic status such as early marriage, poverty, religion, uneducated parents, gender inequality and child labour are the causes of low enrolment and recurrent withdrawal of females, with poverty as the major factor.
Based on the findings and conclusion; the following recommendations were reached that parents should adopt positive attitudes towards female education, and government should provide job opportunities so as to reduce poverty rate, provide free education for females and improve public awareness campaign on the importance of female education to parents and parents should not show male child preference over the female child.

Counselling Implication
There are following counselling implications: 1. Female counsellors are required in schools so as to counsel female students in order to be a successful academician in their society by beating all the societal odds and having better self-concept and self-esteem. 2. School and multi-cultural counsellors should organize conferences and use such forums in conversing with parents and community members on the importance of female education and effect of gender equality. 3. Counsellors should counsel female students on consequences of unwanted pregnancies and STDs.