The Kaduna State Governor, Mr Nasir El-Rufai, has called for an increased investment in girl child education for sustainable socio-economic development of the country.

The governor urged parents and stakeholders in the sector to give priority to female education as they did with their male counterparts.

He lamented that denying the girls such equal opportunity retards their future progress and that of the society.

Governor El-Rufai said this on Thursday when he received 18-year-old author of “Tales of a Viber minor in college”, Miss Nkechi Chidi-Ogbolu, at the Government House in Kaduna.

He stressed the need to invest massively in the education of female teenagers who are living in the transition from childhood to early adulthood, rather than parents sending them into hawking or early marriage.

He added that education of the girl child is a priority of his administration as efforts are on to provide adequate finances and other logistic support for the promotion of girl child education.

According to the governor, part of the interventions of his administration include the renovation of classrooms, procurement of over 78,000 classroom furniture in public primary and secondary schools across the state, as well as declaration of free tuition fees for primary and junior secondary day schools.

He said that the aim was to make education very attractive to children and also to lessen the burden on parents.

El-Rufai further called on the young generation to emulate the female poet who has already enrolled for her doctorate degree programme at the age of 18.

Chidi-Ogbolu, on her part, stressed the need for parents to invest massively in girl child education, saying it would help to shape their future positively.