Nairobi, January 26: Her black eyes are resting under her lowering eyelids, her polite face crops affable smile occasionally displaying her teeth as white as a corn seed, her tender body looks weak, but she is seemingly strong in brain.
“What a boy can do, a girl can do as well,” Farhiya Ibrahim, the best performing girl in the 2009 primary school national examinations in Kenya’s Muslim-dominated Northeastern province, told, carefully enunciating her words.
She has put her best foot forward leaving nothing to chance in emerging the best student beating more than 10,000 boys and girls who have sat for the final primary exams.
“First it is through the Mercy of Allah that I have emerged among the best, but then it is also out of my own hard work and commitment that have seen me passing well.”
Farhiya has built a formidable foundation that lifted her to success through out her eight years studying at a low-cost Islamic Call Foundation primary school in Wajir town.
“I had a favorable atmosphere to study, where I was encouraged to excel by both my parents and teachers, and I seized the opportunity to study hard.”
Her class master says she deserved her exemplary performance in the national examinations as she beat all odds to prove that girls can perform well like boys.
“Her outstanding performance is something she deserved, she is a strong-willed lady who has the courage to find her dreams come true,” said Mr. Omar Khalid.
Exemplary
Girl child education in the poverty-devastated Muslim region still remains a tall order.
Farhiya’s starling performance is a powerful indication of how Muslim girls in Kenya have been rising from the ashes over the years to register admirable performances in both public and private schools.
In much of Northeastern Kenya, a girl competing with boys is seen like stirring a real hornet’s nest and many believed the success of this determined girl was just on a wing and a prayer.
As a girl, her success is an ensuing achievement, especially by girls from the marginalized Muslim region where critical sectors of education and health are the lowest in the East African country.
These days, girls like Farhiya are determined to show their academic prowess despite the poor states of many education institutions in much of Kenya’s Muslim towns.
Female students are now coming out from a backdrop of cultural and traditional attitude that have over the years kept many young girls to remain out of classes.
For many years, the community’s attitude in educating young children has been bent on discouraging education for female students.
“It is good that these days people are understanding Islam very well and they are educating girls like boys,” says Mrs. Fatuma Ali Saman, the principal of Nairobi Muslims Academy.
“But initially parents never used to demand a lot from girls, so educating them was viewed as wastage of resources.”
Challenges
Despite shining examples like Farhiya, girl child education in the poverty-devastated region, where access to education is possible for only a small percentage of school going children, still remains a tall order.
“There is nothing big to celebrate at the moment, we are still looking at the vast gender disparities in many schools across the region,” Mrs. Amina Ibrahim, an education specialist with UNICEF Nairobi office, told IOL.
“For the past few years, the situation in terms of access to education was bad for the girl child, many girls often don’t survive past primary education that is our biggest concern at the moment.”
Gender disparity is still more pronounced with less than 15 percent of young girls enrolling in schools.
Five years after Kenya introduced free primary education for all, the enrollment of female students in schools lags behind boys and remains the lowest in the country.
Over 90 percent of government-sponsored primary schools in Northeastern Kenya lacked proper learning environment.
Many children study under trees due to lack of classrooms.
Educationist here say school dropout is highest among young girls affecting school-going children of between 10 to 15 years, many of the girls who dropped out of classes are toiling as domestic servants.
Many more girls also remain miniature adults assisting their families to manage their domestic chores.
However, in the past few years there have been significant interventions made by education stakeholders in order to improve access to education for young girls.
The performance of girls has been improving in line with the country’s trend but the improvement is slim and Education Ministry officials say it will need a lot of bold campaigns.
Some Muslim schools are inventing more defined interventions to find favorable schooling environment for female students.
“If schooling environments do not change there will never be hope in educating Muslims girls here,” says Asha Mohamed, a female teacher.
For now the impressive success of Farhiya is a welcome encouragement for girls in this poor province to strive hard and make a difference in the future.
“We have the courage to excel as girls, for me I would like to be an engineer and I believe I can make it.”
-Agencies