Environmental factors influencing girl-child access to quality primary education in Ijara District, North-Eastern Kenya

Abstract

Despite various efforts by the government and development partners in ensuring Education for All in Kenya, the participation of girls in education in Ijara District has been of great concern. According to Global Monitoring Report 2010, it is estimated 70 percent of school age girls in the vast North Eastern Province are not attending school and many of them dropping out before completion. The purpose of this study was to investigate the causes of low enrolment of girls in primary schools in Ijara District.

The study looked at the situation of girls' primary education in the district considering the primary school enrolments in the district. It looked at the programmes by the government such as Free Primary Education, School Feeding Programme, mobile schools and boarding schools and their effectiveness in promoting girl-child education. The research employed a mixed methods approach to gather data using semi-structured interviews designed for parents, questionnaires for teachers and education officials and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) for NGOs officials.

The data collection tools were designed to find out the challenges, community perceptions on girls education, preference and education policies concerning girls' education from the purposively selected participants. The study revealed that there is continued under participation of girls in education despite policies and programmes aimed at expanding education opportunities for all children especially girls in the region.

The respondents cited poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, retrogressive cultural practices like early marriage and FGM, wrong perceptions and attitudes towards girls' education, girls' unfriendly schools and lack of well equipped girls' boarding schools as factors responsible for low enrolment of girls in primary schools in the district. Towards the end, realistic recommendations were suggested aimed at promoting girlchild education.

The study recommendations were as follows; educating parents on the importance of educating girls, involving nomadic pastoralists at the grassroots level in all educational planning and implementation, establishing well equipped girls boarding schools which are girls friendly, recruiting well qualified and trained mobile schools teachers, increasing household income earnings through restocking, promoting livestock marketing and providing grazing ranges close to learning institutions to minimize movement of people and livestock.