Institute of Education London

Transforming girls education in Tanzania and Nigeria (TEGINT)

 

Project introduction

TEGINT is a 5 year project being implemented across eight states in Northern Nigeria and six districts in Northern Tanzania.

TEGINT intends to "achieve a transformation in the education of girls in Tanzania and Nigeria, enabling them to enrol and succeed in school by addressing key challenges and obstacles that hinder their participation in education and increase their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS". A 'transformation' however, is not possible without understanding and challenging underlying gender inequalities; power relations, and the ascribed roles of females and males.

National Non-Governmental Organsiaton(NGO)s in Tanzania (Maarifa ni Ufunguo) and Nigeria (CAPP - Community Action for Popular Participation) work with schools and communities and undertake national advocacy to achieve the project objectives.  We also work in partnership with national research institutes to build up robust evidence in which to inform policy and practice in the project and more widely.

The role of the Institute of Education

IOE provides technical and coordination support on the research and monitoring and evaluation of the project. This has included working with national research institutes and other project partners to conceptualise and design comprehensive baseline studies across the two project areas, and conduct data analysis and production of national baseline reports. We have also developed a cross-country analysis of the study findings, published in September 2011.  Read: 'TEGINT: A cross-country analysis of baseline research from Nigeria and Tanzania'.

IOE coordinated the development of a Monitoring and Evaluation framework for the project.  This supports data gathering and periodic evaluation by implementing partners across the course of the project to assess effectiveness of project processes and progress towards outcomes. We are connecting the project to international research audiences and supporting partners in developing papers for conferences and publication in order that learning from the project is widely shared and has influence beyond the project states and districts in which it works.

The next phase of research that has recently begun is conducting in depth qualitative studies in the project areas. In Tanzania this looks more closely at the role of women on the School Management Committees in improving education for girls. In Nigeria the relationship between girls' early drop out from school, early marriage, violence, and school levies charged is being examined through in depth family case studies.

IOE will coordinate an Endline Study in the final year of the project. Through the tasks above we provide technical support and support capacity development on carrying out high quality gender-sensitive research with all partners in the project.
 

Summary of findings so far

Girls have high aspirations for their education in both Northern Tanzania and Northern Nigeria. Poverty, gendered division of labour, pregnancy and child marriage are amongst some of the key obstacles articulated by girls that could prevent them from achieving their aspirations. Girls are more able to identify more political, longer-term solutions (e.g. abolishing fees and levies) in areas of relative inequality compared to areas of absolute poverty.

Women are underrepresented on school governing committees in Tanzania, but much more so in Nigeria where many committees had no female membership in 2008. Higher levels of female membership seem to translate into higher gender parity in enrolment, attendance, progression and completion at schools in Tanzania, with a weaker relationship in Nigeria, perhaps because many committees were not active at the time of the study. Girls widely reported violence in the study, but action was either not taken or was rarely in the best interests of the girls. There are troubling silences, gender, generation and school-community gaps in responding to the needs of girls in school.

Two new composite gender indicators, developed for the Transforming Education for Girls project, shed new light on issues of gender and schooling: the gender profile score (measures girls opportunities and outcomes relative to boys using enrolment, attendance, progression and attainment data) and the gender management profile score (measures teacher training, school outreach, SMC training and monitoring).