On the outskirts of Amman:
Public secondary schools favour boys

The road to Al-Za’afaran

To understand the burden that female secondary students in these villages face, we decided to investigate Al-Za’afaran and Deleila. Our first stop was in Netel Secondary School for Girls where the luckier girls from the two villages studied.

We followed Google Maps with some added guidance sent from a local resident. Gradually, houses grew further apart, roads withered away, asphalt crumbled, and gradually we reached more open and barren lands with scattered trees. The journey proceeded for half an hour more before we reached Netel High School for Girls.

The school seemed to be newly built, with bright colours and spacious facilities. It is adjacent to a number of homes in the village of Netel. We continued to the village’s secondary school for boys and the primary school about one kilometre away.

On the way back from Netel towards the village of Al-Za’afaran, houses became scarce on both sides of the roads leaving a desolate and empty route except for some speeding pick-up trucks and the occasional stray dogs. One quickly realised this was not a safe environment for young female students to pass through daily.

Around two kilometres before we reached our destination, the car stopped on the outskirts of the village where we tried to survey the area and wondered how female students walked that distance every day in the heat or rain.

The walls of Al-Za’afaran Primary Mixed School welcomed us with a brightly painted map of Jordan with slogans reading “Knowledge is Enlightenment '' and “Young but Powerful”. We were warmly received by community activist Zaid Radhyan Al-Zabin and others. Zaid’s uncle had years ago donated the land where the girls and the boys school was built.

Zaid Al-Zabin told us that the Education Directorate in Jiza district does not disburse transportation allowances to students in the village forcing parents to bear the costs of transporting their daughters to nearby schools, some of which are located far from the centre of the governorate. Female students pursuing a scientific program must travel to schools in Madaba governorate.

As the clock struck one in the afternoon, the female students swarmed around us as they were leaving their classes. Amal, one of the girls approached us and asked us to send a message to the Ministry of Education.

Amal adjusts her bag and joins the other girls starting their long walk back home. Her school years will end here in a couple of months. It is difficult for her father to afford the transportation costs of sending her to Netel School, which is further away.

Moments later, Mohammad Abu-Rukbeh, a man in his sixties, has apparently crossed a long way on foot to meet us. Abu-Rukbeh has three daughters, the youngest in grade ten at Al-Za’afaran School, and must enrol next year at a school outside their village to complete her education.

Abu-Rukbeh, a retired public sector employee, says that “Boys can go to Madaba, Netel or Zizya, but most people here are not convinced that a girl should be educated.”

She recalls that when she was a teacher the female students used to gather around her enquiring about university life, “teacher, what is university like? I want to go to university; it is exciting!”

Abu-Rukbeh confirms that there is no public transportation to the village of Netel where the nearest secondary school for girls is located. Abu-Rukbeh does not own a car to send his daughters to school in Netel. The distance and lack of public transportation pose a great challenge for his daughters to complete their secondary education. Abu-Rukbeh explains that parents are discouraged from sending female students to Netel School, due to the distance and lack of transportation.

Al-Za’afaran village is one of the poorest villages in Jiza district, and is around five kilometres away from the secondary school in Netel.

Regulations

Ali Shammout, an education expert formerly with the Ministry of Education, acknowledges that buses are not regularly available in many areas of the district which creates a huge challenge for parents of female students and provides some with an excuse to stop educating their daughters.

Shammout, who worked in the Department of Educational Supervision at the Ministry of Education for nearly thirty years, explains that the Ministry transfers students usually to the nearest secondary school when certain classrooms are not available nearby and it provides them with a transportation allowance.

The girls from the village of Zainab in the same district have been more fortunate. These female students who enrolled in secondary education, be it in the scientific or literary streams, have received a transportation allowance from the Ministry when they go to secondary schools in Arinbah.

Atef Al-Haqish, the head of the Media Department of the Education Directorate in the Jiza District, says that the Deleila Primary Mixed School does not have enough room to open extra secondary classes. The boys’ school in the village has a bigger capacity to accommodate new classes. The situation in the mixed primary schools in the villages of Al-Za’afaran and Zeinab is similar.

Education expert Ali Al-Shamout points out that the solution may lie in having the Ministry of Education re-direct part of the school buildings budget towards adding classrooms. This would allow the ministry to expand education over the different stages by calling for a tender at any time of the year to provide a quick solution to these problems.

Al-Shamout believes that it is possible to make use of the hybrid learning option that combines distant and face-to-face learning for high school students which could reduce the pressure on classrooms. For example , two lessons or more a week of the same subject can be delivered through distance learning and that makes a classroom or two available for female high school students.

He also points out that secondary school students could find a place to study through the concept of ​​classroom rotation, allowing the students to make use of classrooms when others are using different facilities at the school.

Male students in Deleila go on to complete their secondary education at the same school where they went for their primary education

Activist Riad Sobih emphasises that Education Law calls for the provision of education for all without discrimination, moreover, the international human rights standards are aligned with the rights stated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that take accessibility into account while dealing with issues related to rural women, since culture in those societies discourages girls from long distance travels.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child states, “Every child has a right to education. Primary education should be free, and secondary and higher education should be available. Children should be encouraged to go to school in order to obtain the highest possible level of education.”

Sobih’s words resonated with what we saw on the ground, and what villagers told us. Most people are maybe not very convinced that girls should be educated, and customs and traditions do not allow a girl to travel for long distances but that does not mean to deny these girls and their families the choice.

As this article is published, a new school year is about to start. Amal, who will be married soon, may never hear the school bell ring again. Her situation is similar to many other girls in the region. Amal, however, dreams of a different future for her younger sisters in the hope that they can complete their secondary education and go on to university.

This story was produced under 100 Watts project- supported by the Embassy of Netherlands