Education or Marriage?
Principal Sana Al-Oteibi is determined to increase the share of girls at Um Abhara School who graduate from the high school. She’s a Palestinian immigrant from Kuwait, an outsider who is challenging longtime traditions in the village of Um Abhara. Officially part of Amman, the village has traditions more typical of rural areas of Jordan. In this community, most women are homemakers, and the men are olive farmers or military retirees. Some of the women can’t read or write.
It’s quite common in Um Abhara for girls to marry as teenagers and quit school after marriage because, Al-Oteibi says through an interpreter, “it’s forbidden” for a girl to continue schooling after her marriage, according to the customs of the village.
Even if Jordanian women do get an education, most cannot bank on using it in the...
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