ABSTRACT
The study assessed the influence of functional literacy on women reproductive health practices in Lagos Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State. The purpose is to establish the link between educational status and improvement of the girls and women reproductive health, to examine the girls’ and women’s knowledge about their reproductive health, assess the content and adequacy of female functional literacy for health projects in Lagos Mainland. And determine if participant’s occupation would affect their performance in the female functional literacy for health issues and to ascertain whether participants in the female literacy for health issues have better control in their reproductive life than when they were not. Five hypotheses were tested for the study. The research design was survey in nature. The questionnaire was developed for data collection. The total numbers of 150 respondents were selected through the stratified random sampling method. Findings of this study reveal that there is a significant impact of education status on reproductive health, Also information and content of female functional literacy for health issues about reproductive health yielded positive results. Further, it was noted that participant’s occupation has significant effect on performance and attendance to literacy programmes. The result also indicates that there is a difference between the way the girls and women manage their reproductive health when they participate in literacy programme than when they do not .On the basis of this findings, these recommendations were made: Literacy education for the girls and women must be promoted. There is therefore need for federal, state and local government to involve more women to participate in functional literacy for health issues and other socio- economic matters, more awareness should be intensified to acquaint women with what constitute their reproductive health issues. Facilitators to female functional literacy need to be aware of the principles of adult learning in order to enhance the effectiveness of programme delivery, participants in literacy programmes should be motivated to promote their interest, attitude and ability to fully engage in the learning activities and finally, women should be empowered financially for better performance in literacy programmes for health and other related issues.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
According to Anyanwu (1992), literacy education generally is seen as a part of the process, by which ignorant or non-literate persons become aware of their personal situation and learn to do something about improving it. In the process, it becomes a means of achieving political, economic, social and cultural upliftment and human rights. This will enable the people who acquire literacy to play remarkable roles in making their world a better place to live in. As a concept, literacy has many dimensions and its meaning varies according to context (Bakare, 2004). Literacy is now seen more in terms of whatever is required for one to be functionally competent, which may also involve the possession of certain basic skills. This is the idea behind functional literacy. A functionally literate person by UNESCO (1978) conception is one who is able to engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his group and community. In line with UNESCO’s definition, Egenti (2005) sees functional literacy as that aspect of education which enables an individual to perform his role in society. That is, it is an exercise in literacy education which is integrated with development and one which becomes, from its very nature a constituent part of a development plan. Literacy, therefore, is an indispensable strategy for empowering the girls, women and men. In essence, it is seen as a part of the way of improving a better quality of life. This is because it has the potency to fight ignorance, poverty, diseases, disillusionment and abandonment which are obstacles to self- fulfillment of an individual.
It is instructive to note that high levels of illiteracy among the girls and women are closely linked to poor health status in the family (Udeani, 2004). This is why the Federal Ministry of Health conferred with the World Health Organization in 1987 to initiate the female functional literacy for health projects in Benue and Niger States. Literacy and Numeracy Lessons were organized around several health issues such as nutrition, child care, personal and environmental health, reproductive health, combined with health improvement activities for mothers. The development of primers in Tiv and Nupe languages were used to achieve the project objectives of literacy, health and income generation as they were the medium for three component messages. The remarkable improvement in the total quality of life project participants in the two states gave the project implementers at the Federal, State and Local Government levels the encouragement and confidence to call for the national replication of the project. The primers are now written in English and translated into three major languages of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba to make them more relevant to a wider audience.
However, the importance of functional literacy for girls and women reproductive health control can not be underscored. Evidences abound in literature on handsome rewards of functional literacy in promoting the girls and women reproductive health practices. Udeani (2004) posits that literacy is a key factor influencing women reproductive health. In other words, reproductive health practices may depend on level of education. This is why Njelesani, E.K. the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative for Nigeria said, ‘Education kills the disease of ignorance, superstitions, fear and poverty. In addition, Egenti (2005), citing Malniguist (1970) notes that ‘if we want to conquer poverty, hunger and disease in the world, we have to conquer illiteracy first. It is the most serious handicap for economic, social, political and individual development that we know’. There is therefore a strong case for suggesting that functional literacy can provide the girls and women knowledge about their sexuality, family planning, and other reproductive health issues.