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Breaking Barriers
Girls’ Education in Tanzania
What’s the issue?
Barriers to girls’ education are primarily economic and social/cultural. Poverty remains the single major deterrent to education, and lack of education is a major cause of poverty. Uneducated girls become illiterate parents unable to support their children, and the cycle continues. When families face poverty girls are the first to be taken out of school and put into very poor paying work in often dangerous conditions, for example mining, large scale industrial farming, and areas around construction projects.
Some cultures, like the Maasai, see no value in ‘investing’ in their girl’s education because of planned early marriages and believe that there is no point in spending money on educating girls when she will leave for another family and bring money into that one instead of her own. So girls are denied access to school. Mama Conney a Maasai woman, says “Families bribe teachers to get girls out of school to sell them in marriage.” Early pregnancy is another barrier faced by young Tanzanians. More specifically on a day to day level there are more every day household tasks for girls than boys as well as the responsibilities of looking after younger siblings on market days or while their parents are at work. Other issues such as the physical safety of girls in travelling to and from school and the lack of toilet facilities can also prove to be a deterrent. Most difficult of all to breach are the social and cultural attitudes in some pastorialist communities where strong traditions are against the educating of girl children. Albert Meigiroo from Child Hope, Tanzania says that the “Maasai community believe woman are to be home and please the men.”
What is African initiatives doing?
It is clear that education is still the key to reducing poverty and developing communities, Albert Meigiroo puts it best when he says that “We believe when a girl is educated the whole family will be educated”. Mothers will be able teach their children, and the benefits will therefore be seen across the community. In partnership with local organisations, we are helping to increase the amount of girls going to school and securing local jobs Thanks to African Initiatives’ support, local women’s groups are breaking down the barriers that prevent girls getting an education. Lilian Nandoyie, who is now working for the district government in her own community, says: “Individual empowerment will come through education—and I have education. It is beneficial to my family, my community, my nation. I am self confident and self controlled. We have to kick away our inferiority complexes that we are less important than men. We are equal.”
The Right to Education programme supports communities to claim their rights to education, especially for girls, by:
- Improving school governance from community to national level.
- Educating communities about their rights and responsibilities to education
- Training communities to effectively manage their schools, raise resources locally and support teachers and education officers
- Getting HIV/Aids education into the curriculum
- Breaking down the cultural and economic obstacles to education
Achievements so far - the Facts
- PWC is supporting around 95 girls, from primary school to university and into employment.
- 22 nursery schools and community education centres have been built and are maintained.
- Over 1,300 children are attending nursery and pre-primary classes, with 50% of them being girls.
- 4 new pre-primary centres have been established.
- 13 teachers and school committees trained in roles and responsibilities.
- 115 young women have got into secondary school; 2 to university and 7 in teacher training.
- Over 700 people now participate in adult education classes, almost 75% are women.
- £17,000 has been raised by the community to build a new primary school and an extra community education centre.
- A private Maasai secondary school, tainted by incompetence and corruption has been handed to PWC to manage.
“One girl approached PWC when her father had wanted her to marry an old man. The girl knew her rights through PWC and refused. Through PWC she was able to get 50% of her school fees paid.”
“Breaking Barriers – Girls’ Education in Tanzania” is a project examined in our Global Citizenship Resource Pack for young people.
If you would like a pack to help explain the issue to your children, class or youth group please contact Val at val@african-initiatives.org.uk or on 0117 9150001.
