Chapter 11: Efforts to Overcome Barriers to Girls’ Secondary Schooling in Rural Tajikistan: The Importance of Experiential Activities

Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, has undergone great changes since gaining independence in 1991. As a result of the economic transition from communism to capitalism and a devastating civil war (1992–1997), an economic crisis caused a severe decline in Tajikistan’s standard of living and the deterioration of the well-developed, well-resourced education system built up during the Soviet period. Gender disparities within the education system have been increasing since 1991. While minor at the primary level, these disparities become more acute at the secondary school level with the number of rural girls leaving school after Grade 9 (the last year of compulsory schooling) increasing at a disturbing rate in some regions, especially those with a predominance of religiously conservative poor rural communities, as will be discussed in this chapter. The government of Tajikistan has sought to address these gender disparities through policy initiatives aimed at improving gender equity in education, such as the National Strategy for Education Development (NSED) 2015, NSED 2020, and the 2016 National Development Strategy of the Republic of Tajikistan for the period up to 2030, and through development projects implemented by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to improve the educational experiences and opportunities of marginalized children, particularly girls.