Exploring the links between mothers' participation in self-help groups and children's participation in schooling: evidence from Ethiopia

Geneva Global’s Speed Schoolprogramme in Ethiopia constitutes a holistic approach to supporting out-of-schoolchildren (OOSCs) in accessing quality education. A condition of participationis that the mother of each Speed... [ view full abstract ]

Geneva Global’s Speed Schoolprogramme in Ethiopia constitutes a holistic approach to supporting out-of-schoolchildren (OOSCs) in accessing quality education. A condition of participationis that the mother of each Speed School child commits to making regular savingsin a Self-Help Group (SHG), which also receives micro-credit support fromGeneva Global. The SHG component aims to enable the mothers – via a skillsdevelopment programme – to earn enough money through self-help economic activitiesto support their children through their primary education after they havecompleted their intensive ten-month Speed School programme and transferred intothe government school system (Link School). A major assumption behind the SHGprogramme is that poverty is the main reason that many OOSCs are not in school.It is also assumed that the economic benefits of SHGs will combine with thedirect benefits of learning improvements to strengthen the mothers’ commitmentto formal education, as well as achieving other social development goals. Essentially,involvement in the SHG (with its presumed economic and other social benefits) isused as an incentive to ensure mothers’ continued commitment to keeping theirchild in school and supporting their education. Yet our research found thereverse to be the case: the perceived and/or actual quality of the children’sSpeed School experience and their learning improvements provided the ‘hook’that ensured the mothers’ continued participation in the SHG even where the SHGfailed to function and/or yield the desired outcomes. Further, the visiblesuccess of Speed School children over time has increased the Speed Schoolprogramme’s value and desirability, attracting families and mothers who are notnecessarily ‘the poorest of the poor’, and who are able to access other sourcesof social and economic capital.

Drawing on qualitative,ethnographic case-study data, which include interviews with mothers, SpeedSchool graduates, community and local government respondents, as well as withproject staff members, we discuss some of the issues raised by the SHGprogramme – with regard to understandings of poor rural women, conditionalityand community engagement – and consider the implications for programme sustainability.