According to Njoki Wainaina of African Women’s Development and Communication Initiative (FEMNET), gender training involves challenging structures that have existed for centuries. She adds that this involves challenging power relations that affect people at personal, family, community and national levels. She concludes by saying “it can be a very threatening exercise”.
For a long period of time, the status of women has been that of a passive rather than an active member of the society. This passiveness is witnessed in gender-biased decisions which do not call for a vote, views on who is to have which part of a chicken, or regulations requiring a written consent from a male relation when a woman is applying for a bank loan, national identity card or passport. Since education is the liberator of women right from the classroom, how has it, at the same time, been an impediment?
Kenya’s culture, like in many African states, explains the fate of a woman as pre-determined – she either goes up to standard four or remains illiterate. If she happens to be educated, then she is brainwashed and scatterbrained! Perhaps to elaborate this further, one ought to look at Professor Wangari Maathai. Being the first Kenyan woman to win the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, many could not fail to ask why she does not have a male partner, at least in the public domain, for her to be complete. As woman, mother, professor, Member of Parliament and an Assistant Minister, it was argued that she was still incomplete without a Mr. Somebody by her side. Ignorant and shameless, others posited that she won the prize out of mercy and not because she deserved it, especially for championing against environmental degradation.
Another woman who we should not over look is Charity Ngilu. She was the first woman in Kenya’s history to declare her candidature for the presidency. Though she did not make it, she will forever remain entrenched in the history books. After her declaration, as usual, one reputable newspaper had a caricature of a woman president going for a maternity leave carried in a stretcher urging Kenyans “mkae vivyo hivyo”.
Looking at the performance of females academically, the statistics are sad and gloomy. The research conducted in 1994 by Welfare Monitoring Survey II shows that the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) in primary schools for males and females was 95.4% and 92.2 % respectively while for secondary was 28.21% and 23.71% respectively. On the other hand, the Net Enrolment Rates (NER) gives a wider gender gap in primary and secondary schools. Females in primary schools accounted for 68.47%, while males in the same level convey a 69.32%. In secondary school, females averaged 11.13% while males were at 12.03%.
Although there is not a major gap in terms of gender, primary school dropout in 1999 was 4.9% with the girls’ rate at 5% and boys at 4.8%. The highest rate was recorded in Standard Seven while the lowest in Standard Eight. Repetition rate in this level in the same year was 13%, the majority being girls. In secondary schools an average of 10% of boys repeated between Form One and Form Four, the highest being recorded in Form Four (at 3.3%), while the lowest was recorded at an average of 0.8% in form one. Girls repetition averaged to 1.5% between Form One and Form Four, while the highest repetition was recorded in Form Four (at 0.9%) However, the dropout rate for boys and girls stood at 4.6% and 5.1%, respectively. The highest dropout stood at 6.2% and 6.6 % for boys and girls respectively in Form Two. The total percentage of girls who completed secondary school between 1993 and 2000 was 76.8%, while for boys it was 80.9%.
In a nutshell, the challenges which stagnates girls education in Kenya are:
1. Lack of role models especially in schools which are rural-based. The only and few role models in these settings are teachers, some of whose behaviour is wanting. These may be sex perverts, drunkards, polygamists and wife batterers, who would not make good role models. The few who are looked up to, face opposition from their colleagues. In another report, gender shares in primary school between 1989 and 1998 was disproportionately provided. In 1998, for every five male teachers there were two female teachers. An Action Aid Kenya report, puts forth that pupils were nurtured by fewer female teachers while girls were exposed to an insufficient number of female role models, with schools being portrayed as largely as a male-dominated encounter.
2. High school fees levied. Secondary education in Kenya is the most expensive level of education in Kenya. Those who access it are those who are able to afford good education in primary schools. The report adds that the best secondary schools admit students from private academies which are beyond the reach of majority of Kenyans. Another conspicuous issue concerning girls’ education is school fees versus child preference. Most parents would prefer having their sons attend schools as opposed to their daughters. This choice is made in the perceptions of the girls’ weakness and vulnerability on account of sex and sexuality. Sons are regarded as assets while girls are liabilities in the family.
3. Cultures which promote female genital mutilation and early marriages have for a long time, been absorbed into our social systems. Our cultures say a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Period. Women who go beyond the kitchen are frowned at. In most rural schools, girls hurry to get home from the school in the evening so as to engage in domestic chores while boys are left to go scot-free. Local leaders have not made their campaigns - whether for political or HIV/AIDS awareness - with an education setting emphasizing the need to educate the girl-child. The government can, together with stakeholders, integrate education of the girl-child, especially during initiation ceremonies (not FGM), funerals, weddings or any other association as a forum for campaigning the EFA framework with the girl-child in mind. This can be done while insisting that girls can grow up into productive citizens if only educated. In research conducted in 1998, female enrolment and persistence were shown to be adversely affected by parents’ perceptions, which included cost in heavy non-financial expenses; for instance, time is lost in preparation for motherhood and marriage and the opportunity cost of sending a girl-child to school is high as opposed to gains from marrying her off for dowry. A girl is a temporary family member as she joins another family upon marriage. The study concludes that early marriage is a major factor affecting girls’ retention. Marriage age for Samburu girls, adds the report, is 12 years and in some cases, is 10 years old. As though to add weight to the report, a study of schooling and adolescents in Kilifi, Nyeri and Nakuru noted that early marriage was common among teenage girls, pointing out that nearly 90% of girls remain single in Nyeri through the age of 18, while over 50% are married off in Kilifi and 40% in Nakuru at that age. On the other hand, a boy in the same age group had been married and only two indicated they had lived or were currently living with a woman. Culture is also a tool that has unreasonably been used to aggrandize girls right from birth through her life. A Kwale head teacher’s view on girls’ education is seen as alien. The head teacher is quoted as saying that girls who are educated do not assist their parents. Accordingly, their knowledge and earnings will be moved to the other family when she is married. At the same time, educated women are viewed as undisciplined and spoiled – that they can afford to speak in front of men during gatherings.
4. Another factor that inhibits girls’ education is the teachers’ bias in shaping their pupils for career development. Mathematics and sciences are perceived to be “male” subjects, while females are expected to appreciate arts. More teachers prefer teaching male students as opposed to females. For instance, in a 40-minute lesson, a teacher – either male or female - interacts with boys at an average of 17.8 times and girls at 15.7 times. The same teacher has 15.4 positive tone interactions with boys and only 13.8 with girls. One researcher in the study concludes as follows: “Most questions were directed to boys and not girls. The teacher told the girls that if they do not improve, he could foresee them joining the local Mathenge Technical Institute instead of a good boarding (secondary) school…The teacher constantly told the class that the girls do not use common sense and that is why they might not make good sales persons. ‘Lazy salesmen like some of you girls get very little commission’, the teacher told the class”.
The only way in which girls and women can be liberated, is in challenging power relations, as Njoki Wainaina puts it. Women should not just throw the towel down at the expense of their denied inherent rights. Okumba Miruka clearly echoes such sentiments when he says “you cannot go far in gender training if you do not believe in it. A successful trainer makes an integral part of his/her life by living the values he/she advocates. As a male gender trainer, I have had to constantly re-define values through which active and constant reflection of my life and social events otherwise taken for granted. In promoting gender cause, I have adopted the ‘no missed opportunity’ approach, which means that I integrate gender in everything I do, not only in training contexts.”
Then we will have something new to talk about – a liberated nation from the she-perspective which, after all, constitutes over half of the population – thus actualizing the verbalized statements about womens’ achievements with an open mind. One question remains, if all the bends are finally straightened, will there be an actual female liberation?
« return.