By Washjournal
ARUA — after decades of discrimination against the female gender, there is now universal consensus that girl-child education is a key plank for the development of any family, community or nation.
According to a World Bank report titled, “Missed Opportunities: The High Cost of Not Educating Girls,” the price that society pays for not educating its girl children goes beyond lost potential earnings from female workers. The report adds that low education attainment by girls has economic and social implications that stretch to the national level.
“Not educating girls is especially costly in part because of the relationships between educational attainment, child marriage, and early childbearing, and the risks that they entail for young mothers and their children,” says the report. “In addition, occupational segregation by gender between paid and unpaid (housework and care) work, and between types of employment and sectors, also lead to especially high potential costs for girls.”
Uganda is one of the many countries that have put in place policies to support the education of the girl child, including giving all female students an extra 1.5 points to aid their admission to university in a bid to raise the number of girls vying for a first degree.
However, as the World Bank report notes, girls still have a lower level of educational accomplishment than boys. This is down to the fact that girls often have greater requirements than boys to aid their studies, many of which they are unable to receive either due to limited resources within their households or poor planning at national level.
Among the crucial needs that girls have is pads to contain their menstrual flow during “that time of the month.” Without the menstrual pads, many girls face embarrassment or stigmatisation by their male counterparts (many of who haven’t yet been educated about menstruation) in case they bleed while in school and their uniforms get soiled.
The end result, according to available evidence, is that many girls are discouraged from going to school while having their menstruation periods. As a result, they miss out on crucial classes, perform poorly at the end of the term and, in extreme cases, opt to drop out school altogether.
PLIGHT OF REFUGEE GIRLS
If that is the picture for citizens in their own country, then imagine how much more dire the situation is in cases where the girls are refugees fleeing political instability or war in their own country. Uganda hosts more than 1.1 million refugees from South Sudan, DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Somalia.
Many of the refugees from South Sudan and DR Congo live in settlements camps in the West Nile region such as Bidi Bidi, Ocea, Katiku and Rhino. In Arua district, a Church organisation is trying to give female students a chance at a normal school life even during their periods by providing eco-pads.
So far, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG) has provided more than 7,551 eco-pads for girls in Odobu and Katiku primary schools at Rhino Camp settlement in Arua district.
