Kaduna: With a toddler on her lap, and a book resting on the desk before her, a young mother sits among other women in colourful hijabs. In the modest classroom, the women listen attentively to their teacher, who reads a text on the blackboard, repeating after him. For these married adolescent girls in Bugau, in Damau ward of Kubau Local Government Area, Kaduna, motherhood did not end their desire for education. After being forced out of school by early marriage, they are now finding their way back to the classroom, determined to reclaim an opportunity they once lost.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the girls attend classes four times a week, learning how to read and write in Hausa and English, with classes starting at 8:30am and ending at 10:00am. In Bugau, girls are married off as soon as they attain puberty. It is a popular belief that education is for the boy child, while the girls are meant to marry, bear children, and take care of the family. Basira Isah, a 15-year-old married adolescent, shares her experience of being married off at the age of 13 and relocated to Bugau, where her husband lives. She was born and raised in Mabuga, where she attended primary school but was forced to leave due to a lack of teachers.
Isah wasn’t the only girl with this experience. Hadiza Danjuma, another married adolescent, was married off at the age of 14 after dropping out of school in JSS 2. She attended primary school in Bugau and later moved to Damau to attend secondary school. She met her husband when she was 13, courted him for a year, and was eventually married off by her father. Zainab Shehu, aged 14, was the first female child in her family enrolled in school up to secondary school level but was also forced to drop out at JSS 2 for marriage.
The wider statistics reveal a concerning trend. Early marriage remains a major challenge in Kaduna, particularly in parts of the Kaduna North senatorial zone. The 2021 Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey found that 45.3 per cent of women aged 20 to 49 in Kaduna had entered marriage or union before age 18, while 18.3 per cent had married before age 15. The 2026 Kaduna State Out-of-School Children Mapping indicates that 187,719 children aged 3-17 years are out of school across the state’s 23 Local Government Areas, with girls constituting 43 per cent.
In response to these challenges, Basira, Hadiza, and Zainab started a school for married women in their community after receiving training from the Participatory Communication for Gender Development (PAGED) Initiative. This non-profit, non-governmental organisation aims to foster inclusiveness and equity in Nigeria. With support from their husbands and the traditional leader of Bugau, the girls encouraged married women who had left school due to early marriage to return to education.
The programme has faced challenges, including finding a suitable learning environment and the need for additional teachers. However, significant progress has been recorded within months of its commencement. Many women who did not know the English alphabet can now identify and spell their names. Participants like Habiba Ibrahim and Asiya Muhammed have noted improvements in their reading and writing skills, which have translated into practical benefits in their daily lives.
Ultimately, for Ibrahim and the other women, the ability to read a phone number, write a shopping list, or help a child with schoolwork may appear small. But after years without access to education, they see these everyday abilities as evidence that learning can still change the course of their lives.