Girls’ Education Finance: Empowerment for Girls’ Education

The Girls' Education Finance: Empowerment for Girls' Education project supported 28,898 girls and was implemented by Opportunity International UK in Uganda.

The cost of education – including school fees and other school-related costs - is the main barrier to enrolling and staying in school for the poorest learners in Uganda. In project communities, girls were more likely to be out of school than boys. The project found that factors hindering learners’ progress were poorly trained teachers, high teacher absenteeism, and a lack of teaching and learning material. Additional barriers specific to girls included teenage pregnancy, early marriage, low value placed on girls’ education, child labour, sexual abuse and unsafe schools.

The project worked with 2,610 households and 132 affordable private schools to tackle these economic and social barriers to girls' education. It reduced absenteeism and drop-out rates by providing tailored savings and school fee loans to girls and their families to help meet the cost of education. It improved the learning environment through work with school governance, teachers and school cluster groups. It also ran Girls’ Clubs which aimed to provide girls with relevant financial education and life skills that would ultimately enhance girls’ protection and education outcomes.

Main activities

• Improving the quality of education through teacher training, curriculum development, mentoring and support for teachers from educational specialists.
• Building girls’ life skills, sexual reproductive health awareness, entrepreneurship training and self-esteem through the delivery of a structured curriculum in Girls' Clubs.
• Providing school fee loans to households to assist girls’ in continuing their education and transition from primary to secondary school.
• Improving school governance by training school leaders and providing school improvement loans.
• Opening child savings accounts to help girls save for their education and future.
• Supporting income generation activities for marginalised households.

The project in numbers

Lessons learned

A holistic approach is needed to ensure girls’ transition to further education. A combination of support led to successful transition which included improved life skills, support to cover school costs, and support from the alumni network and female role models.

Participation in Girls’ Clubs is linked to improvements in learning. One of the reasons for improved learning is that these clubs built girls’ confidence leading to more active participation in the classroom and a willingness to ask questions. There are also reports of improved student-teacher relationships as a result of the clubs.

An adaptive, whole-community approach to protection is needed. The project found that it was important to adapt the protection approach as issues arose and the project expanded the approach to focus on the wider community, as well as students and school staff. This was a more effective way of affecting social norm change. It was also important to focus on the community given that corporal punishment is illegal in schools but legal in the household and other care settings.

School leaders and government partners should be integrated into the project from the outset and time should be committed to building these relationships. This helps ensure buy-in from school management, helps avoid implementation bottlenecks and provides a greater likelihood that impact will be sustained. It is also important to align with government priorities as this makes the roll out of interventions easier and increases the likelihood of them being sustained.

Opportunity International: https://opportunity.org.uk/