Abstract:
Education is a vital instrument to enhance progress towards poverty reduction, improve
child health, and decrease maternal death, and combat transmittable diseases. However,
young girls are robbed of their youth and required to take on roles for which they are not
psychologically or physically prepared. The objective of this study was to investigate the
impact of early marriage on rural girls ‘education in primary schools of Wahil cluster of
DDA. A multi stage sampling method was also used. Out of the four clusters, Wahil
cluster was purposively selected which consists of nine schools within it. In the second
stage, stratified random sampling was used to select representative schools from the
cluster. Two schools from each arid and semi- arid, totaling four schools (Wahil, Lage Oda
Mirga, Harla and Koriso) were selected. Accordingly, Wahil consisted of 475, Lage Oda
Mirga consisted of 322, Harla consisted of 379, and Koriso consisted 355 making a total
target of 1, 531 students. The study used both primary and secondary sources. Descriptive
statistics specifically percentages, tables and graphs were used to analyze the data.
Moreover, the collected information from key informant interview, and different secondary
data were analyzed and described through opinion interpretations after sorted out,
grouped and organized. The findings of this study indicate that traditional views of the
society to girls’ education in the study area are the major factor that deters females
schooling. Out of the total sampled married girls of 12, about half 6 (50%) of them are in
the age of 17-19 years, and only 4 (33.3%) of them are in the age of above 19 years old.
Most females in the study area marry at the age of 13-14. On the basis of the findings of the
study and the conclusion drawn, the following recommendations are forwarded: The
Educational office in-collaboration with other stakeholders should take protective
measures for girls and alleviate the problem within the community; education bureau need
to devise intervention mechanisms, such as feeding program and delivering stationary
materials, to support female students of low income households to keep them in school.
Finally, to increase the participation of females in education the following additional
measures are important: Supporting positive policies and public expenditure programs,
eliminating forms of discrimination that restricts girls' attendance, providing informal or
alternative forms of education. However, since it is practically difficult to exhaust
everything in areas of females' participation in primary schools, further study should be
carried out to investigate the challenges and come up with possible remedies.
