Why do fewer girls go to school than boys in the Northern Regions?

Jump to Comments

Interview with a shopkeeper on March 2, 2007

One Woman’s Perspective…this post is meant to be read as my impression of a brief conversation, not as a generalized statement of education in Ghana!

 
For our in-country learning session today we were asked to create a blog entry about an informal interview with the goal of learning more about the education of girls. I spoke with a woman who owns a shop near where we are staying.

 

Florian, a fellow volunteer, and I had been in this woman’s shop earlier in the afternoon to buy snacks, an adventure which ended in a good chat and an excessive bill, and also established a positive relationship. This was proven, not only because the Madame was later still interested in speaking with me, but also because of her reaction when I happened to have forgotton my wallet . She just handed me the satchet of water and told me to come back and pay later. I think this was a demonstration of trust, and I’m happy that Flo and I left a good impression.

 

I greeted her and a girl sitting on the floor bagging cold ‘coco’ shyly. ‘Coco’ is sort of like chocolate milk, and in this case was about to become the Ghanaian equivalent of a freezie after some time in the small freezer at the back of the shop. I asked them why it was that women do not go to school, and then followed up with anther question, why they thought more boys went to school than girls. The girl bagging coco was very shy and repeated the question back to me slowly (Note to self: have to learn Grunsi!) The stall owner felt more free to speak with me and had a lot of things to say about education, her main points (paraphrased) follow…

 
On the Upper East in General

 Why girls do not attend school:

- Children do not go to school because their parents can’t afford the school fees.

- Another problem is that women are exchanged for cows through dowry here and so they are not respected. Men feel they have paid for their wife and therefore she is his. There is no reason for women to be educated.

- The government is trying to get more people to go to school and so they are paying for a lot of the setting up of schools but not for school fees. This problem is greater in the villages.

 

From the Perspective of an Asante Woman

 In her culture, Ashanti people from Brong-Ahafo, local liquor called sheel (sp and pronounciation) and a few other things are exchanged ‘for’ a wife during a marriage ceremony. She said that women are not viewed in the same way, and that because there is less money exchanged it means women are more valued.

 
Conclusions

Since this is really just one interview, I wouldn’t dare make any generalizations. I did find talking with the Madame to be very enlightening and I think she also enjoyed sharing her perspective with me. She encouraged me to share it with you and I have done my best to do it justice.

Some of the challenges of my interview process were that I didn’t make a very thought out choice of interviewee, and the madame didn’t know much about conditions of educational services in villages. Robert Chambers, who is heavily involved in the development of participatory research methods, has identified some important biases that  development workers are often  plagued with. Here are some of the ones I could have done a better job of avoiding!

Political Bias : Didn’t have the guts to ask her if she was educated or if her daughters go to school. This would probably not have been an issue for her to answer. I will keep working at asking tough questions until I see push-back

 
Urban Bias : Market women have more education then most and have more chutspah then most – this shop is used to foreigners because they are located right across the street from the Catholic Social Centre where I am staying.  Still we had a good chat.

 
Medas-see  (Twi)  :  M’Pus’ia  (Grunsi) :  Thank you (English)

 Sarah

8 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized