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(2003) observes that while the northern states experiencedmore than 30%average gender gap,
which was as high as 48% in Sokoto and Zamfara, the southern states had less than 10%, with
the gross enrolment ratio (GER) being in favour of girls by minus three (-3) in Anambra State.
In the 2015 NEDS, adult literacy data shows that more females have no education than males. In
the rural areas, 49% of females and 45% of males have no education. In the urban areas, 19% of
males and 22% of females have no education. The percentage of males that have more than
secondary education were 33% in urban and 13% in the rural areas while females that hadmore
than secondary education stood at 22% in urban and 6% in rural areas (NPC & RTI, 2017). The
2015 Net School Attendance Ratios (NER) was 81% for urban males and 59% for rural males
while for females, they were 80% in the urban and 55% in the rural areas (NBC, 2016). The
northern states currently have the worst records on girls' education in Nigeria (Afri-Dev-Info,
2013; Humphreys and Crawfurd, 2014). The NBS (2017) data shows that all southern states
have Gender Parity Index (GPI) at 1.0 at both primary and secondary school levels while
northeast and northwest have GPI of 0.9 for primary school respectively; the secondary level,
the northeast and northwest GPI are 0.8 and 0.9 respectively. In Jigawa state, 45.5% of men and
82% of women aged 15 to 49 have no formal education; in Kano State, 37.8% and 60.2% of
females and males respectively have no formal education (Unterhalter et al., 2017).
Factors that contribute to exacerbating gender inequality in Nigeria's education are related to
poverty, home chores, local attitude to girls’ education, early marriage and pregnancy, distance
to school, gender violence and lack of water and sanitary facilities in schools (Humphreys and
Crawfurd, 2014). Diverse interventions, especially international donor-supported girls
education project have been implemented across Nigeria, with greater attention to northern
Nigeria, but gender gaps persist (Erulkar & Bello, 2007; Dunne et al., 2013; Unterhalter, 2017).
A review of some these interventions by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI,
2012) revealed that many of the genders in education intervention projects are failing to achieve
their objectives and are particularly finding it difficult to stimulate attitudinal changes among
various stakeholders, including religious, traditional and political leaders.
3.4.5. Regression Analysis of the Determinants of Learning Outcomes
In this section, EGRA dataset on children enrolled in grades 2 and 3 are used to study the
determinants of low level of student achievement in Nigeria. The sample comprises of 3,803
pupils from 257 primary schools where students were assessed in the Hausa and English
languages which assessed the reading ability of grade 2 and grade 3 students in public and
government-Islamiyya or IQTE (non-formal integrated Qur’anic/Islamiyya and Tsangaya
Education) schools. The sample includes 127 government schools and 128 IQTE centres. The
dataset includes a rich set of controls for child, family, school and teacher factors. Child-specific
factors include information on student truancy. Since that pre-primary school attendance is key
to school readiness and some children in Nigeria do attend nursery school, our regressionmodel
also accounts for this. Other child-specific factors include whether the child was absent from
school the last week before the test and whether s/he ate a meal at home before coming to the
school. Family-specific factors include indicators of (top four) wealth quintiles of the household.
Among teacher-specific factors, we include an indicator of teacher absenteeism. School-specific
factors include the presence of facilities (e.g. library, electricity, drinking water and toilet), the
teacher-student ratio (TPR), whether it is a government school and whether the head teacher is
a woman.
Figure 3.4.11 summarizes the mean scores for oral reading fluency (ORF) in Hausa by school
type. In case of correct letter sound identification per minute (CLSPM), over 60% zero. In case