Girls' secondary education in Uganda: assessing policy within the women's empowerment framework

Abstract

This paper makes the case that policies, such as the National Strategy for Girls' Education in Uganda (NSGE), intended to achieve gender equity in education for girls in developing countries, have limited relevance to, and impact on girls' actual educational experiences. Recent considerations of girls' education acknowledge that gender equity within education is more than access to schooling; it entails the cultivation of capabilities necessary for girls to participate fully, actively and equally in all aspects of their societies. Drawing on a longitudinal, ethnographic policy research case study with 15 Ugandan schoolgirls in rural Masaka District, Uganda, from August 2004 to September 2006, I explore the girls' educational experiences in relationship to the NSGE. I employ the Women's Empowerment Framework (WEF) to evaluate the NSGE with respect to the extent to which its interventions are ‘empowering’ for girls.

Keywords:

• development studies
• equality
• girls
• ethnography
• secondary education
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Notes

Sara Longwe is a teacher and African feminist activist, who has championed women's rights in international courts and has been centrally involved in organisations such as the Zambian Association for Research and Development and FEMNET (The African Women's Development and Communication Network), of which she is currently chairperson, and GRACE (Gender Research in Africa for ICTS and Development). In 2003 Longwe was awarded the African Prize for Leadership by the Hunger Project.

I define ‘journaling’ as the self-reflexive process of documenting daily happenings in a research journal.