Blog

Despite the focus on girls’ education in the Millennium Development Goals, there remain a huge number of girls out of education, a situation which, although improving, is still a significant concern in Tanzania (especially at secondary level).

Women and girls in pastoral communities are subject to a particularly challenging situation: marginalised not only on account of their gender, but also as pastoralists. It is in this context that this research seeks to explore the issues facing girls within one specific community.

The research has three main areas of focus:

• Community members’ attitudes to girls’ participation in formal education
   The aspirations that parents and girls themselves hold for participation in formal education
• Perceived impediments to girls’ participation in education.
• In order to investigate these three areas, an ethnographic approach was adopted which involved the research team spending a period of time in the field, living with members of the Maasai community in rural Monduli, Tanzania. Observations and interviews were undertaken with a range of community members.

The research makes a number of key recommendations:

• The Tanzanian government and other educational stakeholders should strive to develop further understanding of pastoral communities’ situation in relation to their beliefs and norms, helping to inform a better solution to the inclusion of girls
  in the provision of education.
• Traditional leaders should be more closely involved at district level in order to help the government to engage with pastoral community parents.
• Community women should be provided with adult education in order to educate them to use available resources to change their situation; and with some form of economic empowerment to enhance their agency in providing for their family’s
  needs and in supporting girls’ education.