Women Education as a Panacea for Poverty Reduction in Zamfara State Nigeria

This paper examines women education as a panacea for poverty reduction in Zamfara State. Zamfara State is considered as one of the ‘educationally disadvantaged’ in the country where the literacy rate for both male and female stands at 46.9%, Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) at primary level for girl-child is 40.6% as against 87.7% for male-child. Similarly the GER at Junior Secondary School (JSS) level was 25.7% in 2009/2010 with 34.6% for boys and 13.6% for girls. The gross enrolment for Senior Secondary School (SSS) was 16.9% with that of the boys 25.7% and 6.9% for girls. The paper also examines the importance of women education in both Nigeria where it says that a woman’s education is imperative to the advancement and development of the community and country as a whole. Improving women’s education can bring tremendous development in a country’s economy, and society. The discussion in the paper is based on the theoretical framework of conflict theory. This theory is appropriate because it allows the reader to understand how poverty reduction is significantly affected by women education. The paper concludes that women education is a tool for poverty reduction in Zamfara State. A major recommendation offered suggest that socio-cultural and religious factors should not be used by Zamfara state society as yardsticks to relegate the women to the kitchen. The education of the women should be as important as that of the male-child if not more important as peoples opinion assert when a women is educated a nation is educated