Effectiveness of Alternative Learning for Secondary School Dropout Adolescent Girls Due to Teenage Pregnancies

Abstract

The study was carried out at three district councils of Shinyanga region following inauguration of a pilot programme carried out by UNESCO in partnership with the government of Tanzania. The study was set to achieve two objectives: first, to examine success of alternative learning for secondary school dropout adolescent girls and secondly, to evaluate challenges resulted in programme implementation. The study employed a case study strategy and purposive sampling technique was used to get 166 respondents. Data were collected using interview, Focus Group Discussion and documentary review. Data were subjected to using content analysis after coding them into themes and categories.
From the findings, the following achievements were reported: it had helped in self-employment and income generation, building self esteem to adolescent girls, transformation of societal attitudes towards girls’ education, good knowledge on reproductive health and realization of girls’ educational dreams. Challenges reported included delays in receipt of funds, late payment of teachers, scarcity of learning materials, poor attitudes on education, students’ drop outs and lack of teachers to some centers.

Based on results from the study, the following conclusions are drawn: practical part of training has to be given more emphasis than
theoretical training, the programme would help teenage mothers to employ themselves and girls will be able to realize educational
dreams. Moreover, young girls have benefitted from knowledge about reproductive health. Delay in receipt of funds and late payment of teachers, students’ dropout, community members’ poor attitude on importance of education, lack of trained teachers and scarcity of learning materials were identified challenges of the programme.
Recommendations include the following: make comprehensive sexuality education a reality for all schools, scale-up the programme to other districts as well as regions, deliberate efforts to link course participants to markets and invest more money in improving learning environment for girls. It would be fair to conclude that due to short–term benefits of pre-vocational training, the said aspect of the programme is more likely to be sustainable part of the programme than theoretical training. Hence, it has to be given emphasis.