“It Would Help If We Actually Knew about the Initiative”: The Barriers Female Refugees Face in Accessing Incentive Teacher Training in Ethiopia

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, the Ethiopian government and global actors in education in emergencies have made significant investments in training refugees to become primary school teachers who deliver education to refugees in Ethiopia. These investments include an incentive teacher training initiative in the country’s refugee-hosting regions. This initiative was enhanced in 2018, when the Ethiopian government, supported by global education funding, began offering scholarships to refugees so they could study at teacher training colleges to become qualified primary school teachers. The initiative has faced major challenges in recruiting participants, particularly female refugees. In February and March 2020, a team of 22 researchers conducted a situational needs assessment at 14 refugee camps in Ethiopia. The assessment included focus groups, surveys, and semistructured interviews that were used to collect data from 685 participants. We identified three initiative-specific barriers and four associated structural barriers that were hindering the participation of female refugees. Initiative-specific issues included poor recruitment, a lack of awareness of the initiative among female refugees, and delays in training and scholarships due to funding shortfalls. Structural barriers included the low incentive payment, a shortage of national teachers, limited opportunities for career progression, and a scarcity of eligible refugee girls. My aim in this article is to increase female refugees’ participation in the initiative and improve retention rates for both trainees and teachers by providing evidence-based and participant-driven recommendations to address these barriers.