GIRL CHILD EDUCATION: PARENTAL NEGLECT THREATENS FUTURE OF YOUNG GIRLS IN ASINA PRIMARY SCHOOL, ZOMBO DISTRICT

By Buatre George

Zombo

Pupils of Asina Primary School in Abanga Sub- County, Zombo district have sounded alarm on the devastating impact of parental neglect, toxic attitudes, and crushing Poverty which they identified as fundamental barriers to girl child education in their community.

The Pupils expressed their heart-wrenching concerns, during a children’s Parliamentary Debate organized by Community Empowerment for Rural Development (CEFORD) for the seven ALOCH KU SOMO project implementing schools from the sub-counties of Abanga, Jangokoro, Padea and Paidha town councils at Paidha Primary Teachers college recently. They identified parental neglect, negative parental attitudes, and Poverty as major challenges making the girl child to lose interest in education.

The Children’s Parliamentary Debate is one of the Components of the ALOCH KU SOMO Project been implemented by CEFORD aimed at making learners Learn from each other, build confidence among the learners as they come up to be the future leaders, and to give them a platform to express issues affecting them within the community and the school.

The Impact of Parental Attitudes

Fortunate Piracel, a Primary Four pupil, attributed the lack of interest in education among girls to negative parental attitudes. “One of the causes of lack of interest among some learners in Asina Primary School is negative attitudes of parents towards girl child education. There are some parents who don’t support girl child in her education. Most of our community still think that girl child should be married off when they grow-up. That’s why only few girls manage to complete primary seven every year.”

A Primary Seven pupil, Teopista Kayenparwoth, noted that the impact of skyrocketing child-headed families due to rampant divorce is forcing children to take parental responsibilities, leading to poor performance and dropout. “There is child headed families these days in families due to divorce as a result some children are forced to live alone and take the responsibilities of their parents and such children have very little time to concentrate on their studies making them to perform poorly leading to their drop out.”

Rising Cases of Early Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy

The National Population and Housing Census 2014, undertaken by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), indicated that in Ora County, there were 224 (0.4%) households headed by children aged between 10-17 years out of the 73, 889 (57.6%) total population of children between 0- 17 years. Females aged 6-15 not attending school were 6,663 representing 34.0% and females aged 10-17 years constituting 1,275 in number (9.1%) have ever been married. This number of females in this age bracket who got married early might have worryingly increase due to the effects of Covid-19.

Jenima Micparwoth, another Primary Seven pupil, has implicated parents of the increasing early marriages as they pressurize the girl child to get married for wealth, denying them education. “Early marriage affects children who are of school age going so much and girl child is affected the most. Due to love for wealth, parents put their children under pressure when they are still young and yet they are forced into early marriages and this affects the academic performance as such they lose interest in education.”

She revealed that the alarming cases of early marriages, and teenage pregnancies, have also been exacerbated by the deadly Covid-19 Pandemic where many number of young girls fall victim of teenage pregnancy.

Mr. Ocaki Samuel the Senior Community Development Officer (SCDO) of Zombo district recently, reported that the district registered 9,000 cases of teenage pregnancy from 2020 to 2021, but from 2021 to 2024, the cases increased to 12,700. These figures which were obtained from health facilities, indicated that out of every 100 women who go for antenatal services, 27.7% are under age.

Cultural Challenges and Community Responsibility

According to Alur Tradition, Child marriage has historically been a vice in Alur society, and Alur custom was against marrying off young girls before the age of 21.

They had to mature properly. The boys were to prove maturity too by showing ability and capacity to provide for and sustain a family. Today, some ignorant, dishonest, and greedy elders and chiefs misrepresent this historical cultural norm and make child marriage appear culturally acceptable. They marry off girls to receive bridal gifts but expose the children to ill physical and mental health, a cycle of material and intellectual poverty, child neglect and the malady of school drop-out, all of which perpetuate ignorance and disease, poverty, dis-empowerment and lack of self-confidence.

Mrs. Musango Lydia, a concerned parent, has lamented the exploitation of girls by businessmen at the boarder points due to parents’ failure to support girls to especially during menstruation. “Some parents truly neglect their children and forcing them to go to the boda-boda men and other businessmen for money more especially when they are in their menstruation period and this expose these girls to fall into early sex.”

Mrs. Musango appealed to the parents to always take their responsibility of supporting the education of their children most especially the girl child so seriously to keep the girl child at school.

A Collective Effort for Change

According to the District Education officer of Zombo District, Nicolas Odeba, the multifaceted challenges raised by the girls are acknowledgeable including the influence of unregulated markets along the Uganda-DRC border that distracts girls from education, leading to dropout.

“These girls are facing a lot of challenges and one of them is the influence of the DRC border with Uganda sharing markets, social amenities where there are no restrictions making them to get deviated from education and dropout before completing primary cycle and even those who finish find it hard to proceed because of the influence of the peers.”

In 2016, Asina Primary School had about 90 girls who joined Primary One but only 3 girls managed to complete primary seven last year with only One native girl. This year, the school has only 13 girls in Primary seven and over 100 girls in Primary One whom might even not reach 10 in primary seven.

Currently, a consortium of NGOs in Zombo district has launched initiatives to ensure girls access education and remain in school including the Alur kingdom pronouncing itself on the subject of child marriage, violence against girls and directed that his chiefs should report to the police anybody in clan chiefs who marry off, preside over, arrange and or just watch children being customarily married or violated.

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