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Context and Rationale
Cuso International is undertaking a project in Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State, Ethiopia, aimed at enhancing university access for up to 1,000 economically disadvantaged or special needs schoolgirls and their families in Assosa and Bambasi. Employing a holistic, multi-sectoral approach, the project seeks to eliminate barriers to girls' education in Benishangul-Gumuz. Its objectives include fostering community and familial support for girls' enrollment in formal education, enhancing academic performance, leadership skills, and autonomy among girls, and improving governance and delivery of gender-equitable education at regional, zonal, and woreda levels.
Several challenges must be addressed to achieve these objectives, including reduced educational aspirations among girls and their families, entrenched social stereotypes and stigma, cultural expectations for adolescent girls to contribute to household livelihoods or caregiving, insufficient individuation leading to deficient self-motivation, and learning difficulties due to cognitive deficits. Additionally, the quality of schools and teaching can demotivate students, while conflict in Western Ethiopia exacerbates barriers to education by causing mental health issues and distracting adolescents from their studies.
Recognizing the need for cross-sectoral strategies, Cuso International's U-GIRLS 2 program aims to address familial, communal, cognitive/educational, and institutional risk factors to remove barriers to girls' education. The program includes impactful activities such as teacher training for providing psychosocial support to conflict-exposed students, life skills training for adolescents, and tutorial classes for struggling students. However, these efforts primarily focus on the school setting and may not adequately address family or community-based obstacles to education.
To optimize intervention effectiveness, additional empirical research is recommended to inform interventions at various levels, including individual, teacher, school, family, and community, thus ensuring a comprehensive response to the diverse challenges impeding girls' education in Benishangul- Gumuz.