The Pathway Centre
In Zambia, despite significant improvements, girls continue to face barriers to accessing education, particularly at secondary and tertiary level.
Their attendance and completion rates taper off gradually, with a significant drop-off following secondary. As of 2024, girls’ lower secondary completion rate is 55%, while their upper secondary completion rate is only 31%. Girls living in rural and peri-urban low-income households are especially vulnerable to dropping out as they experience intersecting obstacles, such as financial hardship, early pregnancies, and child marriage, which affects nearly 3 in 10 girls in Zambia.
These barriers come to head in the gap year following secondary completion, when girls experience a period of idleness and vulnerability, with limited guidance or resources to access post-secondary pathways. As a result, few young women complete tertiary education and many face unemployment and general economic disempowerment; over 32% of young women are not in education, employment or training.
The BTG Pathway Centre in Lusaka aims to bridge this gap, turning a challenging period for girls into a launchpad.
The Centre will provide intensive, holistic support during the year after secondary school. Participants will take part in a curriculum with modules on financial literacy, study and work readiness, wellbeing, ICT training, and entrepreneurship. Individual and group coaching will accompany each girl on her desired pathway, whether higher education, employment or entrepreneurship. In addition, each girl will be given the opportunity to undertake a work placement or internship, and be exposed to inspiring guest speakers and role models.
The services to be provided by the Centre have been directly informed by the intended participants, through a survey and focus group discussions where the young women outlined the challenges they face after secondary school, their desired post-secondary pathways and the kind of support they would need the most to achieve them.
Because girls and young women start to face obstacles well before the gap year and may continue to face them after it is over, the Centre will also deliver light-touch support to secondary students and to future alumnae. Secondary school girls will gain exposure to ICT skills and pathway guidance, especially during their last year of secondary school.
In this first pilot year, the Centre will welcome only 50 participants who have completed secondary school with BTG support, through the BTG program run by Mothers without Borders.