Maasai Girls Access to Secondary Education in Ngorongoro District

Olekambainei, Priscilla Emmanuel (2013) Maasai Girls Access to Secondary Education in Ngorongoro District. ["eprint_fieldopt_thesis_type_phd" not defined] thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

This study focused on factors affecting Maasai girls access to secondary education in Ngorongoro District. It was guided by five objectives that focused on enrolment status of girls; retention and completion rate; passing rates for Form IV examinations, selection to form V and other tertiary institutions importance attached to education; and lastly, barriers to girls education as compared to boys. Access was defined in terms of enrolment, retention, drop out, completion, achievement, and selection for further education. The study involved 516 students, of whom 42 percent were boys and 58 percent were girls. Questionnaires interviews and focused group discussions were used as instruments for gathering data. The major findings were that; in enrolments the difference between boys and girls was small as 56.3 percent were boys and 43.7 percent girls. This is very close to national ratios of 54 percent boys and 46 girls in 2012. In retention, the data showed that more girls than boys dropped out. The data also owned that performance was so low but more so for girls. Barriers to girls access to education included poverty which was ranked first by both boys and girls, cultural rites of passage, home chores, poor quality of teachers, and care of animals. To rectify the situation, it is recommend that (i) Government should to take affirmative action in addressing education access in pastoralists areas by increasing the number of good schools to reduce distances to school. (ii) Hostels and boarding schools should be built (iii) There is need to rethink on the need to reintroduce more relevant combinations biased schools to cater for special needs of the pastoralist communities.

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