EFFECTING EDUCATION: FACTORS INFLUENCING GIRLS’ SECONDARY EDUCATION ATTAINMENT IN KENYA’S PASTORAL COMMUNITIES

Abstract

While gender disparities in primary education are improving globally, the gender gap in secondary and higher education remains a crucial issue. In Kenya, post-independence education policies have markedly improved educational access and narrowed the gender gap for children living in urban areas. However, children in rural areas and pastoral communities have continued to be excluded from the positive benefits of these policies. This study aims to fill a research gap by exploring the factors associated with the gender gap in secondary and higher education attainment for girls living in pastoralist societies. Through studying the Turkana tribe, one of the largest semi-nomadic pastoralist tribes in Kenya, this study utilizes quantitative research methods to look at factors such as teenage marriage, subsistence activity, and indicators of an unstable family environment – domestic abuse, substance use, absence of parents, and death in the household – that influence secondary education attainment. Teenage marriage, subsistence activity, domestic abuse, and death due to raids are all significant factors affecting girls’ secondary education attainment (p-value < 0.00). Counter to expectations, food insecurity and substance abuse increases the odds of secondary education attainment (p-value = 0.26 and p-value = 0.38 rspectively). The absence of one or both parents, and the gender of the parent living if only one parent was present during childhood, is not associated with educational attainment. These findings illustrate the importance of looking at poverty, rurality, patriarchy, and gender inequity not as determinants themselves but as systems that lead to the factors affecting secondary education attainment. In addition, a one-size-fits-all approach to educational policy is inherently exclusionary for marginalized groups; equitable educational attainment requires girl-focused policies and interventions. Potential policy solutions include designing a government-funded mobile school education system, increasing the number of girl-focused policies addressing gender disparities, improving conflict resolution strategies, and investing in family and community-level programs and interventions.