Challenges facing Muslim girl-child education in Uganda: a case study of Luwero and Kampala districts

Abstract

The study investigated the problem of Muslim girl-child education in Uganda, from the point of view of the women. The main objective of the work was to examine the challenges facing Muslim girlchild education in Uganda, using Kampala and Luwero as Case studies. The work sought to document the experiences of Ugandan Muslim women who failed to get any meaningful form of education, as told by the Muslim women themselves, as well as those of some Muslim women who managed to attain reasonable levels of education. The purpose was to draw lessons from their experiences, and to formulate measures that can be taken to improve the access of Muslim girls to education. The respondents were selected by purposive and snowball sampling, and were targeted for their known or assumed usefulness to the research. I worked with people I knew and with local council authorities and area Imaams to select the respondents. The first people would lead me to others they knew, by the snowball sampling method. I initially listed 100 participants, but ended up actually interviewing 64 Muslim women, 32 from Luwero and 32 from Kampala districts, aged 30 years and above. The study used interview guides, Focus Group Discussions and semi-structured questionnaires to collect primary data. This data was supported with secondary data collected from textbooks, magazines, journals and the internet. It was then analyzed using the Islamic Feminist approach. The study established that women who did not attain much education were victims of social, cultural, historical and personal circumstances. These include exclusion from the available Islamic education system, age-old cultural inequalities between men and women, such as the burden of domestic labour being left to women, unsupportive parents, sexual harassment and early marriages. On the other hand, those who managed to attain some education were lucky to have enlightened parents or relatives who were also gainfully employed. This, in addition to their personal resilience, enabled them to succeed where others did not. The study concluded that the approach to education provision that denies girls access was not supported by Islamic teachings, and recommended that providers of education should give equal opportunities to all children, regardless of gender, in accordance with the teachings of Islam.