subject: Education for a Kenyan Girl Child [print this page] Education for a Kenyan Girl Child Education for a Kenyan Girl Child
Traditionally, the girl child would receive informal education from the aunts and grandmothers. She was supposed to learn a practical example from the mother. From the time the girl child would start understanding that she is, her role as a woman in the society would start taking shape. Most fathers never associated themselves with the girl child or showed affection or fatherly love to her. If anything went wrong in her life, the father would blame the mother. It was assumed that the mother did not do a good job at rising up the girl.
In traditional African setting, the girl child was taught how to rise up a family. The mother would teach her how to prepare meals for the husband and children. The aunties were charged with the role of teaching her on sexual matters when she became of age. They would teach her on the body changes she might be experiencing, how to avoid pregnancy and subsequent shame to her and the family and how to behave in marriage. When formal education was introduced in Kenya, most families did not see the need of educating the girl child.
They saw this as an exercise in futile for a woman's role was predestined even before birth. Traditionally, a woman could not fit anywhere else but in the kitchen. Therefore, they would argue that a girl did not need to go to a formal learning centre to learn how to bring up a family. The government has had to really sensitize the masses on the importance of taking even the girl child to school. The saying, 'when you educate a woman you have educated a whole nation' is very popular in Kenya.
