CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Women constitute more than half of this number and more than 70 per cent of  them are illiterate and poor (Haese & Kirsten, 2006). The ones who are receiving  schooling at various levels, especially at the tertiary level, are constrained or handicapped  in various ways, making successful academic performance far from the reach of many.

Many experience a life that is a complex web of many roles and many tasks, which require the average women to perform “different roles” at different times in a bid to fulfil  her family‟s needs. These roles have been theoretically characterised as reproductive,  productive and community roles (Bakare-Yusuf, 2003:10; Haese & Kirsten, 2006).

Bakare-Yusuf, like many other feminist scholars, argues that women, both now and in the  past, play pivotal reproductive and productive roles that facilitate patriarchal economic  and productive dominance.

The role of women across the world is changing but not always to their advantage. The  most visible example of this is their contribution to economic development, but owing to  the limitations arising from stagnancy or little progress being made in women’s  education, that is, enrolment rate and academic performance in tertiary institutions of  learning, women and, in particular, married women have yet to reach self-fulfilment and to achieve in all aspects of life. In this regards, Ossat (2005) views higher education for  women as an achievement and a task.

In May 2002, the federal government of Nigeria, in a joint venture with UNICEF,  published the findings on an analysis of the situation of women and children in Nigeria.

Education and women’s development were key issues on which the searchlight was focused and these were discussed intensively. Both are regarded as being inseparable and complementary. In a different study conducted in South Africa, a further assessment  shows that higher education –any type, not excluding women –has come under considerable pressure to be more responsive to the marketplace and to produce new kinds  of knowledge workers (Jansen, 2001).

Women are workers at home, although most of them are not remunerated for the services they render there. In addition, poorly remunerated in their various places of work, women  in Nigeria are among the poorest in Africa and the developing world. Also, they are less empowered, thereby making it difficult for them to perform their tasks and roles at home (Potokri, 2010), in the workplace and in the larger society efficiently and effectively because of the improperly connected variables: women, education and development. To be precise, higher education for a married woman cannot be neglected, quantified or overemphasised.

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