Impact of communal conflict on school life of young adult males and females / youth, family and school authorities in Bimbila, northern Ghana.

Given the importance of education for the empowerment of girls and young women, this research focused on consequences of conflict-based school interruptions on the schooling of young men and women, their families and school authorities, with the hope that this knowledge will be useful for formulation of policies and the promotion of practices that could ameliorated the consequences, if not prevent them. The research was conducted in Bimbilla in the Northern Region of Ghana, and the conflict in question is the chieftaincy conflict that has been present since the late 1990s. Research work entails a lot of fields. The starting fields in this research were conflict and education, and they were related to empowerment. Intersectional analysis was employed and was used to analyze how gender, chieftaincy factions, and socio-economic backgrounds were implicated in the effects of conflict on students’ schooling and future lives. Focus group discussions, interviews and observations were used to solicit information from partici-pants. The research shows that all participants perceived education as crucial in aiding the fu-ture of young generations and especially of empowerment of women. Disruption of school-ing by communal conflicts was seen as bringing risk of disempowerment to girls and women in – Bimbilla, and as a threat to future job opportunities and life options of the students. It was noted that socio-economic backgrounds, gender and factional affiliations of stu-dents really had a lot to do with effects of the conflict on students’ school life. Differences in gender did not serve as an obstacle to the young adults going back to school after disruptions, since girls’ education was very cherished due to the assistance girls offer to their families. Rather, it was the types of experiences that young female students had compared to young male students. Besides, it was socio-economic background and ability to pay fees that impacted return of students to school after conflict-induced closures. When farmers’ crops and traders’ goods were destroyed by violence, and no income follows, some students could not afford fees any longer. It was also clear that factional belonging affects relationships among teachers, among students and between teachers and students. The school has a strict policy of not discussing ix factions on school premises in order to prevent conflict in school, but mistrust exists among students and by teachers because of their differences in factions they belong to. Finally, the conflict and ensuing curfew inflicts both material and emotional toll on the students, parents and teachers alike, disrupts community’s economic, social and cultural activities, and causes injury, death and destruction of property. Parents, teachers and students alike are concerned with these fees and would rather live in peace. There may be rests a hope that they might work together to achieve peaceful outcomes.