Ambition alone cannot dismantle systemic barriers.
Across five regions of Côte d'Ivoire, a World Bank study has traced the full arc of exclusion that shapes young women's relationship with vocational training — from the family calculations that favor sons, to the hostile classrooms that punish those who persist, to the labor markets that refuse to honor what they have earned. The findings are not a portrait of indifference among women, but of indifference toward them. What emerges is a reminder that ambition, when systematically obstructed, becomes both a measure of injustice and a blueprint for repair.
- Before a girl can even enroll, her path is narrowed by family economics, cultural conviction that technical trades belong to men, and a geography that clusters two-thirds of TVET schools in Abidjan, forcing rural students into dangerous living arrangements far from home.
- Inside institutions, crumbling infrastructure, unsafe sanitation, peer harassment, and teacher coercion create a daily environment where survival competes directly with learning — and where reporting abuse often results in punishment rather than protection.
- Pregnancy, financial exhaustion, and the invisible second shift of unpaid domestic labor are the leading forces pushing women out before completion, while schools offer expulsion rather than accommodation.
- Graduates who do finish find employers redirecting their technical qualifications toward secretarial roles, and internships that are unpaid — accessible only to those who can already afford to wait.
- Isolated bright spots — flexible schools, active mentorship programs, employers who seek out female graduates — prove the barriers are not natural law but policy failures that targeted intervention could dismantle.
In five regions across Côte d'Ivoire, World Bank researchers set out to understand why so few young women complete vocational and technical training. What they documented was not a lack of ambition, but a layered architecture of exclusion that begins before enrollment and outlasts graduation.
The obstacles compound from the start. Families treating education as a finite resource tend to invest in sons. Technical fields carry a cultural stigma that makes sending daughters into them feel like defeat. The enrollment process is opaque, especially for rural students, who must often leave home and live with host families — arrangements that can slide into exploitation or worse. More than a third of all TVET schools are concentrated in Abidjan, leaving most of the country without accessible options.
For those who do enroll, the institution itself becomes an obstacle course. Facilities are deteriorating, equipment outdated, classrooms overcrowded. Sanitation is inadequate — a particular hardship during menstruation. Girls report isolation, harassment from peers and teachers, and almost no female staff to turn to. Outside school, they carry a full second shift of domestic labor, often walking long distances on empty stomachs before returning home to more unpaid work. Many persist anyway, driven by individual teachers who believe in them or by their own refusal to confirm what their communities expect.
Completion is where the system most visibly fails. Financial strain accumulates. Early pregnancy leads to expulsion rather than accommodation. Sexual coercion by teachers — with grades and humiliation used as leverage — is documented by multiple students, whose complaints were frequently dismissed or turned against them. Yet some women finished regardless, sustained by family support, part-time income, or the rare institution flexible enough to make space for their lives.
Graduation does not end the gauntlet. Employers steer female technical graduates toward administrative roles, treating their qualifications as beside the point. Unpaid internships exclude those without financial cushions. Some employers and state partnerships are beginning to shift, and mentorship programs have helped women cross into employment — but these remain exceptions.
What the study ultimately surfaces is the scale of ambition that endures through all of it. Young women in Côte d'Ivoire envision themselves as engineers, entrepreneurs, and community builders. The hunger for change is already present. The barriers — in policy, infrastructure, and institutional culture — are not inevitable. They are choices, and the study makes clear they can be unmade.
In five regions across Côte d'Ivoire—Korhogo, Dabou, Bouaké, Man, and Abengourou—the World Bank set out to understand why so few young women pursue technical and vocational training. What researchers found was not a simple shortage of interest, but a systematic architecture of exclusion that begins before a girl ever walks through a classroom door and persists long after she graduates, if she makes it that far at all.
The barriers start early and compound quickly. Many families in Côte d'Ivoire treat education as a scarce resource to be allocated strategically, and sons typically win that calculation. Beyond economics, there is a cultural conviction that technical work—welding, mechanics, construction—belongs to men. In communities where vocational training is already viewed as a fallback for students who failed at academics, the idea of sending a daughter into such a field can feel like surrender. The enrollment process itself is deliberately opaque, with little guidance available, especially for students from rural areas. Then there is geography. More than a third of all TVET schools cluster in Abidjan, leaving vast stretches of the country without options. Girls who want to attend must leave home, often staying with host families who may exploit them for domestic labor or worse, creating conditions so unsafe that some abandon the idea entirely.
For those who do enroll, daily survival becomes its own curriculum. Public TVET institutions suffer from crumbling infrastructure, outdated equipment, and classrooms so crowded that learning becomes theoretical. Girls face particular hardship: sanitation facilities are sparse or unsafe, a crisis that intensifies during menstruation. The learning environment itself is hostile. Drug use, theft, and misconduct are common. Girls report being isolated, harassed by peers and teachers alike, with few female staff members to turn to for support or advocacy. Outside school walls, they carry a second full-time job—cooking, cleaning, childcare—work that is expected of them without negotiation. Some walk miles to class on empty stomachs, then return home to more unpaid labor. The exhaustion is visible in attendance records and grades, yet many persist, driven by encouragement from individual teachers or their own determination to defy what their communities expect of them.
Completion is where the system truly breaks down. Financial strain accumulates across years, pushing students toward dropout. Early pregnancy is one of the leading causes of discontinuation, and schools offer little mercy. Some expel pregnant students outright; others create conditions so unwelcoming that continuing feels impossible. Childcare and commuting become insurmountable logistical problems. Sexual harassment by teachers compounds the trauma. Multiple students reported being pressured for sexual favors, with grades and public humiliation held as leverage. When they reported these incidents, schools often dismissed their complaints or punished them further. The message was clear: your safety is not our concern. Yet the study documents remarkable women who finished anyway, sustained by family support, income from part-time work, or schools flexible enough to accommodate pregnancy. Their completion is not a triumph of the system; it is a triumph against it.
Those who graduate enter a labor market that has not been waiting for them. Employers, despite the training these women have received, still see technical work as male territory. Female graduates are routinely steered toward secretarial or administrative roles, their qualifications treated as ornamental. Internships—the crucial bridge between school and employment—are often unpaid, a luxury only women with financial cushions can afford. Some positive movement exists: a small but growing number of employers actively hire women, valuing their work ethic. State partnerships between TVET schools and youth employment agencies have shown promise in fields like civil engineering and public services. Mentorship and job counseling programs help some women cross the threshold into work. But these remain exceptions, islands in a sea of indifference.
What the World Bank study emphasizes, perhaps most powerfully, is the ambition that persists despite everything. Young women in Côte d'Ivoire envision themselves as engineers, entrepreneurs, community leaders. They want to build businesses, employ others, lift their families from poverty. Some dream of leaving the country for better opportunities; others want to stay and shift the culture where they live. These are not modest aspirations. They are evidence that the hunger for change is already present, waiting only for systems to catch up. The barriers are not inevitable. They are policy choices, infrastructure decisions, institutional cultures that can be altered. What is required is investment in gender-responsive facilities, genuine protection from harassment with real consequences for perpetrators, financial aid designed for women's actual circumstances, and monitoring systems with teeth. The voices in this report are not anecdotes. They are evidence. They are a map of what needs to change.
Notable Quotes
Girls face social isolation and harassment within the classroom, with few female staff members to turn to for support or advocacy— World Bank study findings
Many young women express aspirations to become engineers, entrepreneurs, or leaders in their communities, envisioning building businesses and lifting their families out of poverty— Study participants
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does geography matter so much here? It seems like a logistical problem, but the study treats it as something deeper.
Because geography isn't neutral when you're a girl. Yes, there are fewer schools in rural areas. But that means you have to leave home. And when you leave home as a young woman, you become vulnerable in ways boys often aren't. You're dependent on strangers for shelter. You're isolated from family protection. That's not just inconvenient—it's dangerous.
The study mentions that some girls give up on TVET entirely because of these living conditions. That's a choice being made before education even starts.
Exactly. It's a choice, but it's not a free one. A girl might have real talent for mechanics, real drive to learn. But if the cost of that education is sleeping in an unsafe place, doing unpaid housework for your host family, risking harassment—at some point, the rational choice is to stay home. The system has made education unaffordable not just financially, but physically and emotionally.
What surprised you most about the dropout patterns?
How much sexual coercion by teachers plays a role. That's not a side issue or an occasional problem. It's systematic enough that the World Bank documented it as a major cause of discontinuation. Girls are being explicitly threatened—your grades depend on sexual favors. That's not a failure of individual bad actors. That's institutional collapse.
And when girls report it?
Schools protect the institution, not the student. Complaints get dismissed or the girl gets punished further. So she leaves. The system wins by attrition.
But the study also highlights women who finished. What made the difference for them?
Family support, usually. A parent or relative who believed in them enough to help with childcare or money. Or a teacher who actually advocated for them. Or a school flexible enough to let pregnant students stay. It's not systemic—it's individual grace. Which means it's fragile and it's not scalable.
So what would actually change this?
You'd need to stop treating this as a women's problem and start treating it as a system problem. Gender-responsive infrastructure. Real consequences for harassment. Financial aid that accounts for the fact that girls are often supporting households. Monitoring that actually matters. And employers who see women graduates as assets, not exceptions.