The impact of an adult literacy programme on the socio-economic empowerment of rural women in Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

A large number of adult women living in rural parts of the country had neither the free time nor the opportunity to receive basic education at their early ages. As a result, despite the women's numerical significance, and their remarkable contribution to the economic development, women faced social and cultural challenges that undermine their human worth and dignity. These problems result mainly from lack of education among the majority of women and can possibly cause poverty and inequality. To address these problems, adult education and literacy programs that incorporate functional adult literacy, vocational training, and entrepreneurial support was implemented. Such a program is believed, would promote socioeconomic empowerment of women. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the impact of this adult literacy program on the rural women's socioeconomic empowerment. Conscientization and dialogue theory of Paulo Freire was adopted as a theoretical framework. A case study method was used with a purpose to determine the impact of adult literacy on the socioeconomic life of rural women. For sampling purpose, three adult literacy supervisors, five adult literacy facilitators, and twenty women were included. Data collection tools were in-depth interviews, focus group discussion and personal field notes. To analyze the data, the researcher took the rules proposed by Huberman and Miles (1994) and Marshall and Ross (1995).The analysis of the data resulted in two major themes, five categories, and twenty-one sub-categories. The result showed that the adult literacy program enhanced the following components of women's life: At the individual level, it improved, the ability to read, write and calculate; self-confidence to express one's feeling and idea; a positive self-concept; and confidence to challenge the already established wrong meaning about women. At the social level, literacy changed women's negative attitude towards children's education; improved their ability to persuade/communicate their spouses; it improved women's knowledge of family planning and health matters. Furthermore, it improved women's social networking ability and mobility; and changed women's attitude towards commonly practiced social evils like female child genital mutilation; and also increased women's participation in social affairs. At an economic level, adult literacy equipped women with the knowledge and skills to engage in different income generating activities like poultry production, honey production and growing different types of vegetables. Moreover, adult literacy advanced women's knowledge of saving and effective utilization of resources. However, it was found that that specific adult literacy program could not equip women adequately to exercise their decision-making right in financial management.