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03 2017 There is a need for better data on edu better data on for a need is There in quality performance cational and developing countries. Nigeria is one of the countries with the countries the of one is Nigeria in inequalities educational sharpest Africa. than education less far receive Girls boys. Northerners education far less receive than Southerners. education less far receive Muslims than Christians. to tend inequalities group The above reinforce each other. in inequalities anything, educational If increasing been have Nigeria over the years. reduce strive to should makers Policy inequali group educational systematic ties. CONFLICT TRENDS • Brief Points • • • • • • • Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Peace Gudrun Østby Gudrun Siri Aas Rustad On the night between 14 and 15 15 and On the between night 14 kidnapped were girls 276 April, 2014, in their school from Haram Boko by in Northeastern State in Borno Chibok group terrorist The Islamist Nigeria. should that girls believe not does were girls these and school, attend they were because precisely targeted views conservative However, in school. one only is education and gender on in girls Northern many why reason education. on out missing are Nigeria inequalities systematic large to Due ethnicity and religion, to related suffering are girls many from region, to comes it when disadvantage a triple This brief policy inequality. educational the types of an overview and provides inequalities educational of magnitudes policy some offers and in Nigeria recommendations on how to respond to these inequalities. Group Inequalities in Nigeria in Inequalities Group Education and Systematic Systematic and Education

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high risks of sexual and gender-based violence Inequality and Education Patterns of Educational Inequalities in when moving outside the home. Boko Haram’s Nigeria Withholding education from someone is a tragedy view that girls should not attend school may explain not only on the individual level, but also for society Below we elaborate on the various types of educa- why many of their attacks have been directed to- at large. Research shows that increased levels of edu- tional inequalities in Nigeria. wards girls, such as the abduction in Chibok. cation have an overall pacifying effect, while educa- tional inequalities between groups increase the like- Gender-based inequalities Regional inequalities lihood of conflict. While, inequalities are often un- Figure 1 provides an overview of the levels of com- While the completion rates for both girls and boys derstood and measured as inequalities between in- pletion of lower secondary education and gender are fairly high in Nigeria compared to many oth- dividuals, a large academic literature has found that parity in 39 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The er African countries, there are large regional dif- inequalities between groups increase grievances and completion rate is indicated on the right-hand axis, ferences. The differences between the North and the likelihood of conflict. Group identities could be and the difference between girls and boys is indi- the South can be dated back to the early 1900s. linked to cultural aspects such as religion and eth- cated by the distance between the green (boys) and nicity, geographical and regional differences, as well orange (girls) dots for each country. The horizontal as groups defined by gender or age. line in-between shows the overall completion level. Compared to many other African countries, the av- Nigeria is one of the most socioeconomically un- erage level of education in Nigeria is relatively high. equal countries in Africa. Survey data indicate that However, Figure 1 indicates that Nigeria has one of in 2013, approximately 80% of boys at the age of 15– the largest differences between boys and girls. Only 17 (i.e. 3–5 years older than expected primary educa- two countries (South Sudan and Djibouti) have a tion graduation age) had completed primary school, larger difference. On the left-hand axis, the gender while the corresponding share for girls was 66%. parity, meaning the female-to-male ratio of school Further, women from the Yoruba tribe have more completion, is measured. For Nigeria, the gender than five times as many years of schooling than parity is 72; this indicates that 72 girls complete Hausa women. Finally, Muslim women living in school for every 100 boys doing the same. predominantly Christian areas in the south have a considerably higher level of school completion than Differences between boys and girls could be attrib- Muslim women living in predominantly Muslim uted to levels of poverty, forcing parents to prioritize areas in the north. In sum, many girls living in their investments between their children, potential- Northern Nigeria suffer from multiple sources of ly pulling more daughters than sons out of school. disadvantage, not just because they are girls, but also Also, safety and security issues may pertain to girls Figure 2: Lower secondary education completion due to systematic cultural and regional inequalities. to a larger degree than to boys, with girls having rate, by gender. Source: WIDE (2011). CONFLICT TRENDS 03 2017 www.prio.org/ConflictTrends 60 12

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6 secondary education 0 Women 19 with completed Women 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 4 ear of birth (5-year periods) Christian majority Christian minority Muslim majority Muslim minority Figure 3: Share of women who completed secondary education in Nigeria, by religion and cohort. 2 Source: DHS (1999, 2008, 2011 and 2013). Mean years in education (women) Mean years

During the colonial period, the British practiced more than one million school children have fled 0 indirect rule, which implies that they essential- from violence in northeastern Nigeria. Regional 1940 1960 1980 2000 ly ruled through the agency of the existing rul- educational differences between the North and ear of birth (5-year periods) ers, thus under the restriction of the colonial gov- South in Nigeria are not unique. There are indeed ernment. In the North, the indirect rule policy similar patterns of regional inequalities with regard tnic grops allowed for the continuation of the traditional to economic welfare, health and infrastructure. Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri oruba Emirate system, i.e. a Caliphate with local emir- Igbo Other ates. In the South, on the other hand, there were Cultural inequalities Ljaw few existing political entities, thus the locally war- In Nigeria, there is a considerable gap in the av- ranted chiefs leaned more towards the British ed- erage levels of education between Muslims and Figure 4: Mean years of education for women in ucational and economic systems. These differen- Christians, with the latter having approximately Nigeria over time, by ethnic affiliation. tial paths to social mobility and nobility largely ac- twice as many years of education than Muslims. Source: DHS (1999, 2008, 2011 and 2013). count for the contrasting responses of Northern This fits well with the regional picture of a pre- and Southern peoples to Western modernity, and dominantly Muslim North and predominantly broken down by ethnicity. We see that the Igbo and especially to education. In the North, a large share Christian South. We can observe the same trend Yoruba perform much better than other groups, of children was sent to Muslim schools, while in when we compare Christian and Muslim women. while the Hausa-Fulani are lagging behind, and the South, schools offering Western education be- Figure 3 shows the difference in the share of sec- have had a slower development than most other came more important. Already in 1914, the South ondary education between women who belong to a groups. This could possibly explain the finding had 13 times as many schools offering Western religious minority/majority in the area they live, i.e. that Muslim women in predominantly Christian education as the North had. Muslim women living in predominantly Christian areas perform better. areas, and vice versa. Christian minority women What about contemporary regional educational in- have a slightly lower level of education compared Educational inequalities have increased over equalities in Nigeria? Figure 2 displays the total to Christian women living in Christian dominated time completion rate of lower secondary education for areas. Thus, it seems that for Christian women it In both Figures 3 and 4 we see that the develop- each federal state in Nigeria (with darker colors in- makes very little difference where they live with re- ment for both Hausa-Fulani and Muslim women dicating a higher completion rate), as well as the gard to their educational prospects. On the other living in predominantly Muslim areas has been completion rates for girls and boys. The map clear- hand, Muslim minority women have a much high- much slower compared to all others. This provides ly shows that the southern regions perform much er likelihood of achieving secondary education than two important insights. First, the inequalities that better than the northern regions. It also seems that Muslim women living in Muslim-majority areas. were established in the colonial period have not di- the lower the overall completion rate is, the low- minished since independence, but rather increased. er is the share of girls compared to boys. This can While religion is an important identity-marker in Second, political attempts at reducing inequalities be seen in Zamfara in the Northwest for instance, Nigeria, it is also interesting to look at ethnic af- by either national educational reforms or by donors where the total completion rate is 35%, yet boys filiation, particularly since ethnicity and religion through development aid have not been successful. are five times more likely to finish lower secondary (as well as region) do not fully overlap. While the education than girls. The exception is the state of Hausa-Fulani is predominantly Muslim and the Education and Reinforced Cleavages Borno, where both boys and girls suffer, with a to- Igbo predominantly Christian, the Yoruba eth- tal completion rate of 27%. This is the stronghold nic group is mixed, and mainly situated in the Previous cross-national research has found that of Boko Haram: an area where schools have been Southeast. It is thus included in what we define ethnically mixed societies and countries with destroyed or closed down, and teachers have been as the South. Figure 4 indicates the development Muslim majorities have higher levels of gender in- killed. Human Rights Watch has indicated that of mean years of schooling over time for women equality in education, everything else being equal. www.prio.org/ConflictTrends CONFLICT TRENDS 03 2017 1.4 Figure 5 indeed shows that the gender parity of education varies by religion, and much more so in 1.2 Nigeria than in many other African countries. In about half of the countries there seems to be a larg- 1 er difference between Muslim boys and girls com- pared to gender inequalities among Christians. 0.8

In Nigeria, the mean average of attained school 0.6 years for Christian women is 10.2 years, compared to 11.08 years for Christian men . However, the gen- 0.4 der inequalities are much more pronounced among Muslims. The mean years of schooling for Muslim 0.2 women is 3.8, while Muslim men have almost twice as much education (7.3 years on average). 0

Togo Chad Benin Summary and Policy Recommendations Ghana Guinea Kenya Liberia Malawi Ethiopia igeri Cameroon This policy brief has shown that educational in- Burkina Faso Sierra Leone Moambique equalities in Nigeria are reinforced by regional, Female Christian Female Muslim Christian gender parity Central African Rep cultural, and gender-based cleavages. In short, the Male Christian Male Muslim Muslim gender parity North is less educated than the south, Muslims re- ceive less education than Christians, and girls suf- Figure 5: Gender parity in terms of lower secondary education in selected countries, by religion (2005– fer from a gender-bias in favor of boys. Hence, we 2014). Source: WIDE (Most recent year available for each country). need to consider all these in concert in order to cap- ture the full picture of educational inequality in and more likely to drop out of, poor quality schools Further Reading Nigeria. It also seems that the various cleavages and schools that are lacking teachers and adequate tend to reinforce each other. For example, the differ- school materials such as textbooks. Østby, Gudrun, Henrik Urdal & Ida Rudolfsen ence in girls’ and boys’ educational level varies by (2016) ‘What is driving gender equality in sec- region, with the Northern part of the country dis- Finally, it is important to stress that in addition to ondary education? Evidence from 57 develop- playing the sharpest gender inequalities (Figure 2). understanding what affects gender- and cultur- ing countries, 1970–2010’, Education Research ally based inequalities in education attainment, International. Article ID 4587194, 18 pages, 2016. Furthermore, policy makers need to take into ac- we need to better understand the causes of sys- doi: 10.1155/2016/4587194. count the complex patterns of educational inequali- tematic inequalities in terms of education quality ties when planning interventions to make sure and student performance. Such studies exist for Østby, Gudrun & Henrik Urdal (2014) Conflict and that they target the most marginalized groups and e.g. OECD countries, but to our knowledge there educational inequality: Evidence from 30 countries help to reduce the most severe education gaps in is a lack of such data for developing countries at in sub-Saharan Africa. Commissioned report for Nigeria. Committing to reduce systematic educa- large. Hence, a final recommendation is to facili- USAID. tional inequalities between cultural groups can tate and prioritize the collection of data on edu- contribute to reducing the risk of armed conflict, cational quality and performance in developing Rustad, Siri Aas & Karim Bahgat (2016) Nigeria as well as reducing gender-based inequalities. countries. Country Study. Conflict Trends Country Report com- missioned by Peace and Reconciliation, Norwegian A broad, cost-effective way of getting more girls to Ministry of Foreign Affairs. attend school is to enhance the quality of schools. Previous research has shown that the quality of education and of educational facilities affects girls more than boys. Girls are less likely to enroll in,

THE AUTHORS THE PROJECT PRIO Siri Aas Rustad is Senior Researcher at PRIO The Conflict Trends project aims to answer The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) is a and leads the Conflict trends and DEAFIN questions related to the causes of, conse- non-profit peace research institute (estab- projects. She is a Nigeria expert, her research quences of and trends in conflict through lished in 1959) whose overarching purpose interests include conflict, aid and inequalities. quality-based analysis. The DEAFIN project is to conduct research on the conditions for Gudrun Østby is Senior Researcher at PRIO aims to investigate Inequalities in Conflict- peaceful relations between states, groups and and Editor of the Journal of Peace Research. Affected Societies and the effectiveness of de- people. The institute is independent, interna- Her research interests include the relation- velopment aid. The Norwegian MFA and the tional and interdisciplinary, and explores is- ship between conflict and maternal health, research council have funded this research. sues related to all facets of peace and conflict. education and inequality.

CONFLICT TRENDS 03 2017 www.prio.org/ConflictTrends