Reintegrating teenage mothers into formal education in rural Nigeria: Any role for childcare†support?

Developing countries have made remarkable progress towards gender equality in school enrolment rates, particularly for primary and secondary schools. However, a wide gender gap remains in the transition to secondary school and completion rates. For instance, in Nigeria, whereas the gender parity in primary (secondary) school enrolment rose from 0.81 (0.84) in 2000 to 0.95 (0.97) in 2018, in 2021, about one million girls dropped out between the first and last year of primary school and about 0.6 million dropped out between the last year of primary school and the first year of junior secondary school. Consequently, only 51% of girls completed senior secondary school compared to 57% of boys (World Bank, 2022; UNICEF, 2018, 2022). In this study, researchers seek to conduct a needs assessment on factors militating against the reintegration of adolescent mothers into formal education, with the ultimate goal of informing the choice of possible interventions to be implemented. This will be done in conjunction with Teenage Network, an adolescent-serving NGO aimed at facilitating access to quality education for adolescent (10-19 years) girls in Nigeria. Through this study, researchers seek to complement the efforts of Teenage Network in Northern Nigeria by carrying out a needs assessment of adolescent mothers in Southern Nigeria, towards informing a national reintegration guideline for the country.