Abstract:

Dealing with poverty and economic hardships in developing countries has been a primary theme for many international organisations. There have been calls to apply greater attention towards girl child education to ensure that future generations do not experience the traditional gender disparities in which males have been regarded as better than females in almost all aspects of life. In developing countries such as Malawi, indications are that girls still lag behind boys, despite the implementation of several interventions to reverse this trend. This study examined the socio-economic factors that influence the participation of the girl child in educational activities in Zomba, Malawi. The focus was mainly on household and school-related factors such as distance to school and the availability of resources at school level. The study used descriptive analyses, cross tabulations and binary logistic regression to examine the gender disparities that exist between girls and boys in education. The results showed that a higher percentage of girls, unlike boys, were out of school and that there was a higher percentage of girls that dropped out of school. In the regression results, distance to school as well as water points, and a host of other household characteristics including household income emerged as significant determinants of girls’ education participation.

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