Successes, Challenges and Prospects to Achieve Upe in Benishangul Gumuz Region: The Case of Agro-Pastoralist Gumuz Community Children
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the major success, challenges and prospects
in achieving the target of UPE in the agro-pastoralist areas of BenishangulGumuz Region
of Metekel zone . Based on this, analyzing the status of primary education with respect
to the Agro-pastoralist Gumuz localities is very important to decide up on the future
goals which are intended to meet the target at the year 2015. Particularly to provide
primary education to all children of the official school admission age, evaluating the
challenging factors and identifying the cause for prevailing problem and suggesting the
possible strategies to alleviate the problems enables to achieve the UPE target.
The research design employed in this study was descriptive survey. Apart from
consultation of relevant documents from different source, data were gathered from 305
Gumuz students, 86 teachers, 15 school principals, 21 REB, zone and woreda
educational experts and officials, 21 PTA members 12 Gumuz community elders and 15
KETB teams. The data collected was analyzed using some statistical tools like
percentage, mean and chi-square test .
The data from documentary analYSis indicated that the educational status of AgroPastoralist
Gumuz children participation in primary school is extremely low. This
indicated that there were challenging factors for the Agro-pastoralist Gumuz localities to
achieve the target of UPE. Based on this finding, school related and out-of-school
related constraints were assessed to identify the challenging factors. The school related
challenges like irrelevance of curriculum, inappropriate medium of instruction, shortage
of student text book, absence of upper primary (5-8) school have been identified as
major challenges that hinder the achievement of UPE. The out-of-school challenging
factors were further categorized as socio-economic, socio-cultural and socio-climatic
problems. The socio-economic constraints like low parental income, high demand of
child labor by their parents, distance from home to school and lack of awareness of
Gumuz parents about the value of education were found to be the major barriers to the
educational involvement of the Agro-pastoralist Gumuz children. Moreover, sociocultural
constraints like existence of exchanging Gumuz females to get wife for her
brother, lack of educated role model, and lack of awareness of Gumuz parents about
the value of girls' education were also found to be the major barriers to educational
participation of the agro-pastoralist Gumuz children. Furthermore, socio-climatic
constrains like the impact of malaria on the students health were found as a major
problem . Hence, it is concluded that in most cases there was challenges that hinder the
involvement of Agro-pastoralist Gumuz children in primary schools which was a function
of school related, Socio-economic, socio-cultural and socio-climatic constraints, which
altogether indicated as there were challenges in achieving UPE particularly in the agropastoralists
localities and generally in the region. Depending on this findings the
recommendation made for addressing the challenges are upgrading the existing schools,
using the non-formal approach, using resettlement program, realizing awareness and
advocacy program, using boarding school, school feeding program and using alternative
basic education .
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Keywords
Challenges and Prospects to Achieve, Upe in Benishangul Gumuz Region