Looking beyond the school walls

Household decision-making and school enrolment in Afghanistan

By: Hunte P
Published by: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) , 2006
Via: Eldis

This briefing paper explores key demand-related factors influencing decision-making about school enrolment of both boys and girls in Afghanistan. The paper finds that more than one member of a household is usually involved in an enrolment/non-enrolment/dropout decision. Even in extended families, a child’s father and mother play the prominent roles in the negotiation, which may entail either cooperation or conflict. Multiple reasons usually influence a single decision, with supply and demand issues often interacting.

Parents may desire education for both sons and daughters, but be constrained by a combination of poverty and their fear of negative social pressure, specifically in relation to girls’ enrolment. Considerable variation in demand-side issues exists between households. In relation to gender dynamics, there are families in most communities which are willing to take the social risk and send their daughters to school – at least for the primary years. With regard to resource allocation, many extremely poor households continue to place high expectations on education as a way out of poverty and, rather than require their children to work, they send boys (and to a lesser degree, girls) to school in the hope of a better future.