Community-led education and girls’ access to schooling in Nigeria - Historical legacies, cultural constraints, and pathways to empowerment

Oct 15, 2026

This study examines community-led education initiatives aimed at expanding girls’ access to schooling in Nigeria, with emphasis on northern regions where educational gender gaps are most pronounced. Using a qualitative synthesis of thirty-one program evaluations, policy reports, and scholarly studies, the research analyzes how locally embedded interventions affect enrolment, retention, and social perceptions of girls’ education. It studies initiatives including school-based management committees, mothers’ associations, peer-led clubs, and religious partnerships through intersectional feminist theory, social capital, and ecological systems.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Nigeria’s out-of-school children paradox

Historical and structural constraints

Research focus and framework

Theoretical perspectives

Community mechanisms and outcomes

Findings and limitations

Mediation between policy and households

Fragility after support diminishes

Policy implications

Governance, retention, and livelihood pathways

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 14(1), pp. 208-227, March 2026 ISSN: 2354-2160 Full Length Research Paper Community-led education and girls’ access to schooling in Nigeria: Historical legacies, cultural constraints, and pathways to empowerment Ibeakamma Chinazaekpere Ugochinyere, Moses Kargbo* and Xiulan Wan Zhejiang Normal University, China. Accepted 11 March, 2026 | ABSTRACT
This study examines the role of community-led education initiatives in expanding girls’ access to schooling in Nigeria, with particular attention to the northern regions where gender disparities in education remain most pronounced. Drawing on a qualitative synthesis of thirty-one program evaluations, policy reports, and scholarly studies, the paper investigates how locally embedded interventions influence enrolment, retention, and broader social perceptions of girls’ education. The analysis focuses on initiatives such as school-based management committees, mothers’ associations, peer-led clubs, and religious partnerships that operate atthe intersection of community structures and formal education systems. The study is guided by three complementary theoretical perspectives: intersectional feminist theory, social capital theory, and ecological systems theory. Together, these frameworks allow the analysis to move beyond descriptive accounts of program outcomes and instead examine the social mechanisms through which community engagement reshapes educational participation. Evidence from the reviewed programs suggests that community actors often play a crucial mediating role between state policy and household decision-making. Where trusted local institutions endorse girls’ schooling, enrolment gains are more likely to occur and, in some cases, to persist. Yet the findings also reveal important limitations. Increased access does not always translate into sustained participation or economic empowerment. Structural constraints such as poverty, early marriage, insecurity, and weak institutional capacity continue to shape educational trajectories for many girls. In several cases, educational gains remained fragile once external funding or program support diminished. The paper argues that community-led education initiatives represent a necessary component of efforts to address gender disparities in schooling. However, their long-term impact depends on broader institutional support. Policies that integrate community participation into education governance, strengthen adolescent retention mechanisms, and link schooling to viable livelihood pathways may offer more durable progress toward educational equity.
Keywords: Community-led education, girl schooling, educational equity, gender norms, education policy. | | --- | | *Corresponding author. E-mail: [kargbomoseslamin@gmail.com](kargbomoseslamin@gmail.com). | INTRODUCTION Nigeria is currently facing an existing paradox that is both longstanding and substantial. On one hand, the nation has one of the largest economies on the continent , and on the other, it has the burden of the highest number of out-ofschool children in the world. Recent estimates show that some 10.5 million Nigerian children are not in the formal education system , of which girls make up a significant proportion (UNICEF, 2022; UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2023; World Bank, 2022) . While statistics on the numbers of out-of-school children in Nigeria might not be alarming in terms of quantity, it is substantial in terms of the opportunities that millions of Nigerian youth, particularly girls in the North, might miss in terms of their social and economic potential. According to UNICEF’s Ugochinyere et al. 209 latest statistics on the situation in Nigeria, approximately 7.6 million Nigerian girls are currently out of school. Out of these, approximately half of the out-of-school girls in Nigeria were enrolled in either primary or junior secondary school (UNICEF, 2022) . According to UNESCO’s latest statistics on ou

FAQs

What is the main focus of the study?

The study focuses on how community-led education initiatives expand girls’ access to schooling in Nigeria, especially in northern regions where gender disparities are largest.

What types of community initiatives does the paper analyze?

It examines interventions such as school-based management committees, mothers’ associations, peer-led clubs, and religious partnerships.

How do the findings explain why access may not lead to long-term participation?

The paper reports that structural constraints such as poverty, early marriage, insecurity, and weak institutional capacity can prevent sustained participation and economic empowerment, especially when external funding declines.

Oct 15, 2026

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