Why females prefer colleges, polytechnics – Stakeholders

The desire to acquire tertiary education before marriage had made most females in Borno to prefer enrolling in Polytechnics and Colleges of Education instead of universities, some education stakeholders in the state have observed.

They said on Thursday that Polytechnics and Colleges were more convenient for females because of the shorter years of studies, thereby enabling them to complete their A-Level education before getting married.

Some of them said that it was easier for applicants to secure admissions into such institutions than Universities.

The Borno state Focal Person of N-Power, Alhaji Babazannah Abdulkarim, said Colleges of Education had higher numbers of females enrollment.

He said, “The girl-child has limited time. Most girls, especially in Northern Nigeria, find it more convenient to go to colleges than universities because they always get married before 18 years.

“Most men do not like their women to work and women also do not like to stress themselves going to the University.”

The Borno Director of National Orientation Agency in Borno, Alhaji Yahya Imam, said the orientation of women in Borno and Northern Nigeria in general with regards to pursuing higher education was not encouraging, as such they preferred the short-cut offered by polytechnics and colleges of education.

The Chairman of Borno State Joint Tertiary Education Board, Muhammad Askira, said the girl-child education had not been given the attention it deserved at both the local and national levels.

Askira said some ideologists even believed it was an abomination for girls to go to school.

He said, “Some men believe that women who went to Colleges or Universities always have the self-fulfilling ego to do things for themselves without depending on their spouse.”

A student of Ramat Polytechnic, Zainab Madu, said it was hard to gain admission into the university and therefore preferred college of education.

She said, “Before you gain admission into the university, you have to sit for UTME and post UME, which are difficult for some of us.

“Our parents usually ask us to produce husbands immediately after secondary school; some of us will always want to hop into any available school for fear of being forced to get married.”

The Registrar, Muhammad Goni College of Legal Islamic Studies, Maiduguri, Alhaji Ahmadu Abdulfattah, said most of those seeking admission into the college, right from its inception, were women.

“Most women feel comfortable with NCE programme. Here, we teach civil and sharia law and we still have a high number of women,” he said.