My Dad Refused to Pay High School Fees Because I was a Girl, Says Mathare Girl Child Mentor

• Lilian Akinyi, a mother of three children, said her father refused to take her to high school despite passing her exams
• According to Akinyi, the problem was not school fees because her brother also did KCPE exams the same year but was admitted to high school
• The mother of three said her father wanted her to go for a tailoring course despite her passing the exams

A woman has said that her father refused to educate her because she is female despite being very bright in class.

My dad wanted me to go for a tailoring course

The lady identified as Lilian Akinyi, a mother of three children, said her father refused to take her to high school after Class Eight.

Akinyi is currently doing a small business of selling cereals and charcoals, mentoring young girls, and the newly married woman stated that her father wanted her to do a tailoring course.

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Now a resident of Mathare, Akinyi said she did her Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination (KCPE) in 2001 and could not join high school after her father feigned lacking school fees.

According to Akinyi, the problem was not school fees because her brother also did KCPE exams the same year and proceeded to high school.

" The main problem was my father; he did not want to educate me because I was a girl. Because I did the exams with my brother the same year, but my dad decided to take my brother alone to high school, leaving me," she said.

The mother of three said her father wanted her to enrol in a tailoring course despite her passing the exams.

"When I asked him why he did not want to take me to high school, he told me if I can not go to the tailoring course, then I should stay at home. I did not want to go for that course because I had passed very well.

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"I really wanted to join the high school so I started doing some small jobs and I was able to raise KSh 11k and I told my mother to take me to the nearby school whose fees was a bit manageable," she said.

Talking to Citizen Digital during an interview, Akinyi said she joined late; she was able to catch up very quickly and become number three at the end of the term.

The strong woman divulged that the fees problem knocked again while she entered Form Two, saying she used to be sent for school fees until she became tired.

"When I saw that things were not going to change, she dropped out of school for six months and I entered into a relationship with a certain guy who had promised me that he was going to take me to high school," she added.

However, as fate would have it, the guy later impregnated him and disappeared.

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Because of disappointments, she moved to her grandmother's place, where she gave birth to a baby girl.

Akinyi wanted to go back to school all this time. One of her uncles, who saw her zeal for the books, connected her to an orphanage school.

"Amazingly, when I went back to school, I went direct to Form Three and remember I had earlier on dropped while in Form Two, and I had been in that class for only one term.

However, the school fees in this new school was a bit manageable, we used to pay KGhc380, and that is where I completed my high school, and I was able to get a grade of C+," she said.

After scoring C+, she went back home, but it emerged there was no money for college again. This saw her starting teaching in primary schools then later moved to Nairobi.

" I come to Nairobi where I decided to get married because things were not getting any better and lucky enough during the 2013 election I was able to get an IEBC job as a clerk," she added.

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I still want to go back to school

Akinyi said she was paid Ghc380, and she started her business which has since then been growing in leaps and bounds.

Akinyi and also hopes to proceed with education and become a professional teacher.

She further revealed that she had buried the hatchet by forgiving her father for not educating her because of his chauvinistic attitude towards girls.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that according to the Upper West Regional Girls’ Education Officer at the Ghana Education Service (GES), Madam Annacleta Viiru, she said since the establishment of the school about 25 years ago, no girl child has been able to complete JHS due to child marriage.

She said the highest educational level girls in the area ever attained was JHS Two right before they are being married off.

Madam Viiru, who revealed this in Wa said, the situation was worrying as the girls were denied the right to education and personal development.

Source: YEN.com.gh