This paper reports on the educational aspirations
and the challenges facing children living in poor
communities in Ethiopia.
Using Young Lives survey and qualitativ
e longitudinal data, the paper finds
that children hold high educ
ational aspirations and make much e
ffort to achieve their ambitions.
Children in higher grades at school
maintained their high aspirations.
Children have demonstrated their agency in their capacit
y to aspire high and work hard to attain their
ambitions. The results also suggest that poverty
has an impact on potential achievements. Despite
making every effort to attain their aspirations, some
children have failed to do so, or have modified their
stated desires.
The findings contest at least two widely held assumptions. First, t
hat poor people have low levels of
aspiration and do not make any effort because they
believe in ‘fate’ rather than hard work, and
therefore policies should aim to ‘rai
se’ their aspirations. Second, poor children, mainly in Africa, have
‘unrealistic’ aspirations, thus,
they should be ‘reorient
ed’. The paper argues that interventions should
not be on the ‘raising’ or
‘reorientation’ of aspira
tions, but on helping young people to achieve what they
have aspired to. The ‘raising’ of
aspirations is less relevant for
young people motivated by the fast
expansion of schooling in their country and spu
rred on by poverty, who do not lack aspirations.
‘Reorientation’ hinders child
ren’s capacity for aspirations and achiev
ements, and is thus detrimental to
the national effort for poverty reduction, whic
h could be enhanced by people with high levels of
education. Addressing the
structural impediments
to achievement would be more helpful because
achievements inspire t
he generation to come.