Bridge Promotes Science Careers For the Girl Child
Bridge community schools commemorated the 2021 International Day of Women and Girls in Science, set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, with basic science and technology lessons that allow children, particularly girls, to explore and be inspired by science.
Themed, ‘Women Scientists at the Forefront of the Fight Against COVID-19’, the day emphasised how the pandemic has shown the critical role of women researchers in different stages of the fight against COVID-19, from advancing the knowledge on the virus, to developing techniques for testing, and also creating the vaccine to combat the virus.
The occasion brought to the fore the gender disparity and disadvantage of girl child education and in particular the lack of girls and women participation in science, which needed to be addressed by new policies, initiatives and mechanisms to support women and girls in science.
Girl child education in Nigeria
With reports that more boys than girls go on to have science careers, in addition to the increase in the number of out-of-school children aged 5-14 years in Nigeria numbered at about 10.5 million (UNICEF), advocacy for girls education in Nigeria needs attention and remedial action, with specific programs and laws instituted to reverse the gap in girl child education engendered by traditional cultural and religious prejudices.
Bridge provides practical science experiments in classroom lessons, enabling pupils to directly engage with the possibilities that science brings, igniting the kind of passions that start the journey of some of our greatest women in science in Nigeria.
Some Bridge girls and many others aspire to be Archaeologists, Engineers, Doctors and Scientists in future, so now is the time to encourage them and break the stereotypes and biases that depicts that only boys should go on to pursue careers in science.
Reasons why girl child education is important
Sophia Irozuru, speaking at the PyCon Conference, an event for coders and developers in Nigeria
Bridge community schools actively pursue science opportunities such as our partnership with Code Lagos, in their ambition to teach one million Lagosians to code, through which some of our girls experienced 8 weeks code training course with PYLadies an international mentorship organisation for women in coding.
This led to some of Bridge girls attending the PyCon conference, an annual event for coders and developers where Bridge pupil Sophia Irozuru received a standing ovation at the conference after speaking on her experience learning to code.
To learn more about how we support our pupils and why our parents choose Bridge, please visit our About Us page.
