The Nigerian government is implementing a new strategy for school girls entering their first year of junior secondary schools aiming to assist them on the “challenges” of living in a male dominated society. The program will deliver tools and background knowledge of Information Communication Technology (ICT) by the federal government. It is all part of Nigeria's efforts to increase and support ICT education of young girls in the goal of positioning them to compete with their male counterparts in the modern technological age. Minister of State Education Kenneth Gbagi announced the initiative in Lagos and said that the government would distribute 360 units, including computers, to a number of schools in the city. It is also a step in the direction of continuing Nigeria's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and hopes to give young girls the ability to become acquainted with technology, mainly computers. “It will definitely be a step toward empowering our future generation of women in this country,” said Sarah Nbeme, a Lagos-based women's rights activist. “We have long lived in a society that does not value women the same way it does our men, so it is a great and important step by the government to push for greater roles for women by starting them at a young age.” According to Gbagi, “the program involves the provision of … selected schools nationwide with laptops and the training [of] teachers from benefiting schools on the use of the technologies. “Our goal is to see the entire education sector embrace the use of new technologies to meet the human resource requirements of the nation for attaining sustainable socio-economic development, global competitiveness as well as the individuals' ability to survive in the contemporary environment,” the minister added. Overall, the new project, as evidenced by Nbeme, is a giant leap forward for women's empowerment within the ICT sector in the country. “It is very exciting to see how it plays out,” she said. BM
