|
|
AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Girl Farm Labour and Double-shift Schooling in The Gambia: the Paradox of Development Intervention
| Panel |
18. Education and Social change in Eastern and Southern Africa
|
| Paper ID | 76 |
| Author(s) |
Kea, Pamela Jennifer
|
| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
|
| Abstract | The paper examines the intensification of Gambian girls’ domestic and farm labour contributions in The Gambia as a result of the introduction of double-shift schooling. Double shift schooling was implemented in the late 1990s in order to increase access to school and to address deteriorating standards. Drawing on fieldwork among female farmers and their daughters in Brikama the article puts forth the following arguments: double shift schooling facilitates the intensification and increased appropriation of surplus value from girls’ household and farm labour; secondly, double shift schooling highlights the paradoxical nature of development intervention where, on the one hand, legislation and policy call for a reduction in child labour by increasing access to school, and on the other, neo-liberal educational policy serves to facilitate the intensification of girls’ domestic and farm labour. It maintains that the state and development institutions, by insufficiently investing in Gambian children’s education, are facilitating the intensification of girls’ work. |
|