Access, Enrollment and Retention: The Case of Secondary Female Refugee Education in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Settlement in Northwestern Kenya

Abstract

Conflict, crisis, and displacement cause more than 100 million people (UNHCR 2022a) to flee their countries and seek refuge or (re)settlement in a third country. This can cause refugee and displaced children to miss out on many years of education. The situation is even more worrisome for female learners. Years of prolonged conflict and displacement result in considerable variation in access, enrollment, and retention rates of male and female learners because women and girls are more proportionately disadvantaged and pushed out of educational spheres as they progress through primary and secondary school.Using the comparative case study of Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Settlement located in Northwestern Kenya, this study aims to understand the factors that affect the access, enrollment, and retention of female refugee students at four different schools and examine the differences in educational outcomes between the two locations. A review of the literature suggests that there is a positive relationship between parental employment status and education level and the educational outcome of girls. From this, the research hypothesized and investigated the significance of paid parental (especially that of the mothers) activity on the educational outcomes observed through the fieldwork. Through individual semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, this thesis challenges the existing literature by illustrating that within the context of Kakuma and Kalobeyei, the impact of parental employment and education level on the education outcomes for girls with regards to access, enrollment, and retention is not nearly as significant as the literature suggests. This study concludes by highlighting the importance of conducting research for the female refugee students themselves and working with them to find bottom-up solutions that are gender-informed rather than top-down solutions that might not necessarily work with the realities in which they live. iiiAcknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Shireen Hassim and Dr. James Milner, for their continuous mentorship, support, encouragement, and flexibility, especially with my travel arrangements. Shireen and James' inquisitiveness and natural positive engagement with my study helped me stay motivated and grounded even on days when I was feeling discouraged or having difficulty imagining the bigger picture. I would like to say thank you to Shireen, the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN), and the Migration and Diaspora Studies Program for providing me with the funding to comfortably conduct my research. Thank you to Dr. Charles Mather of the University of Calgary for providing me with guidance on how to conduct and structure my thematic analysis from an Anthropological lens. Thank you to my amazing support team (Catherine Masha, Stanley Nyale, Boniface Mitiran, the Tchouawou family, Anpurna Sanghani, and Dorothy Kyalo) in Nairobi and my study participants in Kakuma and Kalobeyei, Kenya. They made conducting research in a different country a...