Access to Education for Learners in Rural Communities: An Oxymoron?

In the community where I live, there's a girl child, a soon-to-be young woman. Fate has not been on her side education-wise. She has sat for her grade seven examinations at least four times and failed to meet the passing mark. As per the Zambian education system, grade Seven examinations are a prerequisite for transitioning to secondary school.?

I drove past this girl a few days ago and she appeared to be pregnant. I was saddened by that. I wanted to think that my eyes just caught sight of her at the wrong angle but alas! It makes me sad to know that after unsuccessful attempts at education, pregnancy and subsequently marriage are the next best solution that a girl has, that she sees as the only hope to improve her life. If there's one thing that I wish for the girl child, it is "to see them excel through education, be autonomous and reach their highest aspirations."?

I wished and hoped so much that the now pregnant girl had continued with her school, but whom do we blame if she had eventually lost hope in education and fallen pregnant instead?

Does her story sound familiar? Yes, it does. It is not uncommon! She is just one in thousands of girls in rural communities who are in the same, similar or worse situations.?

Current reports show that Zambia's transition rate from primary to secondary school is just about 60%. In rural communities, and based on my findings, the transition rate is as low as 30% in some schools.?The remaining 70% are dropouts, teenage pregnancy and poor academic performance among others. For example, A month ago, five (5) girls in a class of seven (7) girls were reported pregnant at a certain school in Rufunsa, rural Zambia.

Young People in rural communities face more barriers in terms of access to education, information and empowerment opportunities as compared to their counterparts in urban areas.?Yes, we sing and preach about education being the greatest equalizer, but tell me how!

Tell me how education will be the greatest equaliser when the system itself is bred to be unequal. When pupils' access to quality education is determined by their geographic location. When the more remote a community is, the less the quality of education they have access to.

There's s much work to be done to address these barriers and other structural bottlenecks that limit girls from reaching their full potential. In this article,?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-do-girls-rural-communities-drop-out-school-other-side-chikatula, I wrote about the typical scenario of what a girl's life looks like without education, in the village. The article highlights how the lack of motivation to stay in school comes about and most importantly how this lack of motivation is a combination of many factors entwined together from the individual, community, structural and institutional levels (the education system itself).

Many times, if not all, social problems are a result of much more complex reasons that go beyond an individual or community. The problems are institutionalised and that's why institutions must first of all be made more accountable and criticised for how they operate or deliver their services. -The bureaucracy, weak policies, work attitudes, little to no checks and balances, and lack of political will among others contribute to these problems. However, in addition to looking into the system and calling it out, I propose the following actions if we are to leverage towards the achievement of quality education for all and help girls to achieve better education outcomes:

• Stronger advocacy and radicality in our demands for transformative education in public schools. We can not afford to be liberal anymore.
• Build capacities of organisations and/or individuals working in rural settings and support them to implement sustainable projects. More support for locally driven interventions.
• Engage communities as collaborators, and challenge them to reveal the power within them to become drivers and actors of their own change.?One example would be to train communities to be education champions or vigilantes, patrolling their communities and ensuring that all children go to school.
• Government/ non-governmental organisations in the education sector must facilitate the strengthening of relationships and rapport between the teachers and parents, taking note of power dynamics for meaningful dialogue/multilogue on how to improve the learning outcomes of pupils.
• Pedagogical approaches to teaching must be encouraged and enforced in schools to accommodate the specific needs of every learner.?

To conclude, there are existing approaches by many organisations working to achieve results based on similar recommendations as the ones above. But we should ask ourselves, how long must we wait until we can know that what we are doing is working? In whose interest exactly do we do what we do? And how emic are the approaches employed?

Save the girl child!