Girls’ Empowerment in Rural Upper Egypt: A Comparative Study between Community and Government Schools

Abstract:Education can empower students. The student-centered, child-friendly, active-learning pedagogy of the Community Schools (CS) is supposed to transform students and empower them. In Egypt, over the years, non-governmental organizations and the Ministry of Education joined the CS movement while mainstream government primary schools (MPS) were built throughout the country. This study examines girls’ empowerment in CS and MPS, defining empowerment via two domains, schoolgirls’ participation in decision-making and their mobility. Utilizing quantitative data analysis of surveys collected from three Upper Egyptian villages, the results reveal that CS girls are older, poorer, and from less educated families than MPS girls. There are no significant differences in the empowerment levels between CS and MPS girls, except for public mobility. Indeed, girls in both types of schools largely share the attitudes of their parents and the wider community. The CS investigated are adaptive rather than transformative. Transformative change requires involvement of parents and the community.