Participation of Female Students in Secondary Education in Madina District Mogadishu, Somalia

ABSTRACT The study investigated the factors influencing female participation in secondary schools education in Medina District, in Mogadishu with the specific objectives of: (1) to establish to what extend the school related factors have influenced female participation in secondary education in Madina district Mogadishu Somalia (2) to examine the female participation in secondary education in Madina district Mogadishu Somalia.(3)to establish the relationship between the influential factors and female participation in secondary education in Madina district Mogadishu Somalia. The study employed a cross-sectional survey design using both quantitative and qualitative approaches on a sample of 136 respondents consisting of 130 female student and 6 none students who had experiences in girl participation in secondary education in Madina district. Data was collected using a standardized questionnaire of which the data collected was inputted in SPSS and analysed using frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation and correlation as appropriate. The study found out that social cultuaral factors such as gender stereotyping during socialization, sexual violence experiences in the community, female domestic labour obligations, early marriages of girls and the less interest attached to girl education. Similarly a range of policy related factors such as lack of government funding for secondary education, lack of compulsory free secondary education, lack of gender affirmative action on secondary education, lack of financial incentives for girl education. School related factors that influence female participation in secondary education included, secondary school circular which perpetual gender stereo typing, lack of gender sensitive school sanitation facilities, high secondary school cost and lack of female teacher role models, sexual harassment and lack of female teacher role models. There was low participation of females in secondary education significant in low enrollment, early dropouts, lower grades and low participation in science relate subjects. The social cultural, policy and school related factors had a significant relationship with female student enrolment in Madina suggesting that improvement in the socio-cultural, policy and school related factors would result into a higher participation of female in secondary education Somalia. The study recommends that to achieve full participation of female students in secondary education the government of Somalia, NGOs, civil society, xi religious leaders, and other stakeholders should take affirmative action through to address the social cultural, education policy and school related factors through awareness building.