Improving menstrual hygiene management to reduce school absenteeism of female secondary school students in Nigeria

Executive Summary

This policy is a sustainable approach to curtail the negative impact of poor menstrual hygiene on school attendance of female secondary school students in Nigeria. It advocates for; provision of reusable sanitary pads to all female students in secondary schools across the country; and teaching menstrual health and hygiene to all first-year secondary school students. By reducing school absenteeism secondary to poor menstrual hygiene, this policy will improve female school attendance in the country, and possibly the female literacy rate.

Problem Statement

Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world at 10.5 million (Pellens et al., 2016). The literacy rate of 15–24-year-olds in the country is 75% (UNESCO, 2018). The literacy rate of males in the same age group is higher than the national average (81.6%), while that of females is 68.3% (UNESCO, 2018). School absenteeism has been documented to negatively affect academic performance of students (Ehrich et al., 2010). Research has shown that poor menstrual hygiene causes female students to miss school in Nigeria (Fehintola et al., 2017; Hennegan et al., 2021). The two leading causes of poor menstrual hygiene amongst adolescent schoolgirls in the country are lack of sanitary products and poor knowledge of menstrual hygiene management  (Fehintola et al., 2017). It is important that these contributors of poor menstrual hygiene in students are eliminated. This will reduce the rate of school non-attendance due to menstruation in the country, currently at 23% (Hennegan et al., 2021).

Policy Alternatives

UNICEF facilitates menstrual hygiene management training in Nigeria (Ominyi et al., 2019). Secondary schools are among the targets of this intervention. In this training, female students are educated on good menstrual hygiene practices, and taught to make reusable sanitary pads (Ominyi et al., 2019). The menstrual hygiene education is a good initiative. This is because even though there is a National School Health Policy which has been in existence since 2006, it has no provision for menstrual health education (Federal Ministry of Education, 2006).