Socio-cultural Factors Affecting Girls’ Education in South Sudan: a Case of Bor County, Jonglei State

Abstract

Educating girls play a significant role in the socio-economic growth of any given country. Often, governments commit huge investments on girl child education to realize its envisioned benefits such as having and effective social capital for the workforce of a country. In many developing countries, female enrolment in learning institutions is restricted due to many factors. Millions of girls in Africa experience hardships in accessing school facilities and utilizing academic services despite the effort employed to push the cause forward. Despite various interventions by the South Sudanese government, the education girl child still has been constrained due to cultural beliefs and other factors due to relentless wars. The objectives were to find out the influence of cultural beliefs on girls‟ education, establish the influence of social factors on girls‟ education and find out economic factors influencing girls‟ education in South Sudan. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Multi-stage sampling involving cluster, proportionate and systematic sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 120 students. According to the findings, majority of the students interviewed were aged 18-22 years old followed by those aged between 23-28 years old and those above 28 years old were very few. The study shows that the number of male students interviewed were higher (58.3%) compared to their female counterpart. On the other hand, an early marriage came out to be a major concern to girls‟ education with majority of teachers agreeing that early marriages negatively influence girls‟ education, thus making majority of girls not to pursue their education to completion; however, few students‟ perceived that early marriage has no impact on the education of girl child; while a very small fraction of the students agree that early marriage had little effect on girls education. Majority of the respondents confirmed that the presence of role models in girls‟ life have effect on their education and only few of them said it has no effect all. Nevertheless, the data illustrate the extent to which role models especially women as vital to girls‟ education. The study demonstrated that parents with higher education level acts as role models to their daughters. Majority (66.7%) of 120 student respondents said that their parents did not support their education while few students admitted that their parents supported them in their education. The study concluded that, the government of the Republic of South Sudan has the responsibility of taking the initiative in making sure that the legislations and policies are put in place and implemented to safeguard all the children, particularly girls, to access education to a completion levels. The study also recommended that parents need to be sensitized on the role and relevance found in educating a girl. The government needs to come up with affirmative action to help many girls enroll in the schools.