Why Girls?
We focus on supporting girls because girls are especially vulnerable to dropping out of school, and when girls stay in school the result is socially-responsible women who secure better jobs, raise healthier families, and create lasting positive change in their communities.
Only 33 % of Tanzanian girls go to secondary school,
and only 2.5% to tertiary education (UNESCO, 2021).
Girls who are fortunate enough to enroll in secondary school then face significant financial, cultural, and environmental challenges that undermine their ability to make the most of the secondary school opportunity. As a result, many young women fail to complete secondary school. Once they reach the workforce, women are much less likely to occupy leadership positions, and they earn significantly less than their male counterparts.
Only 2/3 of Tanzanian girls who start secondary school will go on to complete secondary school.
Obstacles to finishing secondary school include poverty (88%), pregnancy (60%), and early marriage (55%). When a girl drops out of school, not only is her healthy adolescent development and transition into productive adulthood impacted, but she is exposed to challenges she is ill-equipped to overcome.
In 2020, 100% of graduating Kisa Scholars passed the final exam that enables them to continue on to tertiary education. They also scored 6% higher than the national average on the final exam of secondary school.
BENEFITS OF HELPING GIRLS
For each additional year of secondary school, a girl completes, her earning potential increases by up to 25%
For each additional year of secondary school a girl completes, her quality of life increases markedly. Her lifetime earnings, her ability to direct her own reproductive choices, her daughters’ educational attainment – she is empowered to improve all of these with additional schooling.
Girls with secondary schooling are up to 6 times less likely to marry as children, and have more control over the timing and number of children they bear.
Girls with secondary education are more likely to delay having sex, more likely to delay their first pregnancy, and less likely to be subject to the emotional, physical, and sexual violence that is widespread in Tanzania. Educating girls also results in decreased child mortality (because girls become more well-informed about reproductive health and medical care) and a reduction in HIV/AIDS rates.
If all girls completed a secondary education by 2030, the gross domestic product (GDP) of developing countries could rise by 10% on average.
For most young women, completing school and obtaining a certificate is not enough to guarantee an improved quality of life and the opportunity for personal fulfillment. Without ‘soft’ skills like confidence, resilience and motivation, many will remain disempowered in their everyday lives. AfricAid looks beyond individual academic achievement to ensure that girls are well-placed to become empowered women who will ultimately change Tanzanian society for the better.
HOW AFRICAID HELPS GIRLS
AfricAid works through our local Tanzanian partner, GLAMI, to address the issue of poor educational outcomes for adolescent girls in Tanzania at two key stages of their development.
Binti Shupavu is a four-year life skills course for lower secondary school girls covering topics such as study skills, personal leadership, health, and self-confidence with the goal of increasing graduation rates for vulnerable girls.
Kisa Project is a two-year leadership course that prepares girls in their last two years of secondary school to attend university and create positive social change in their communities.
Sources
BMJ Journal, https://sti.bmj.com/content/80/suppl_2/ii28.full
Education Policy and Data Center, https://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC_NEP_2018_Tanzania.pdf
JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26348079.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A52c67f718fde08e4e8eb9c823d36ff5d
Plan International, https://plan-international.org/publications/plan-international-worldwide-annual-review-2015
Population Council, https://www.popcouncil.org/research/girls-education
Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, https://www.nbs.go.tz/index.php/en/#
UNESCO, http://uis.unesco.org/country/TZ
USAID, https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment