Women engineers advocate free, compulsory education for every girl child

Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN) has advocated free and compulsory education for every girl child in the country and Africa as a whole.

Speaking with journalists during a walk to mark world women’s day in Ilorin, Kwara State at the weekend, the Ilorin branch chairpersons of the association, Oluwatoyin Babatunde, said free and compulsory education for women would enable rapid socio-economic development and growth in all African nations.

“It will be quite impressive if education is free for every girl child. It will be an avenue to promote and encourage education among women in Africa and it would surely have an impact in rapid transformation of the continent” she said.

Talking on the theme of the celebration: an equal world is an enabled world, Babatunde said the theme signified that the world should ensure equality in all ramifications of life.

“We’re saying that gender inequality is not all about women, but it’s about race, religion, world issues, economic, equal opportunity in every aspect of life for everyone. This is in line with the mission and vision of the association, which tends to promote excellence in professionalism among women engineers and women engineers as leaders. Also to promote awareness of girl child education in the field of engineering.

The APWEN, which is a division of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, also called attention to stereotype or belief that engineering profession is male-dominated.

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“That’s why we carry out awareness campaigns that the profession is for both male and female because engineering has to do with solving problems. And there are so many problems to be solved within the human population. And looking at the human population, the figure is close between that of males and females. And everybody should be involved in solving the problems we have”, she said.

The women engineers, who took their walk around major roads of the Ilorin metropolis amidst singing and dancing, also used the walk to create awareness and sensitize people on Coronavirus and Lassa fever, advising that people should take precautionary measures against the diseases.

“We should keep our environment clean. We as women engineers have a role to play to see that our people live a healthy life”, she said.