Solar Lighting for Rural Ethiopian Students

Unlike urban students, rural students in Ethiopia are facing different constraints and suffered a lot. In the day time, as a student they travel across long distances on foot daily to reach schools as most high schools reside in and around urban areas. They spend half of the day in schools for learning (due to educational shifting system). During the rest half of the day, as a farmer; males support their parents in herding cattle, as  ploughman and in crop harvesting;  and females support their mothers in fuelwood collection, preparation of meals and fetching water. They both are tight in the day and have no spare time for doing home work and reading.    

Rural students may have extra time only in the evening to do home works, assignments and to study for exam preparation. Those students who passed the night outside home (open place) keeping cattle in a shed, burn maize stalk and fuelwood as source of light for reading and doing assignments (unthinkable! in the 21^st century). On the other hand, students who pass the night inside home primarily use wick based kerosene (blended with used vehicle oil) as source of light.  Kerosene, characterized by high running cost is expensive and poor rural parents are unable to purchase for daily consumption. Oil blended kerosene also causes health risks. A student reading using blended kerosene in the night discharges soot/black carbon/ in the morning when sneezing and long time exposure to emission causes eye strain and respiratory infections. Lighting Kuraz also causes kids and house burning when left lit due to sudden sleep of students after tiresome study.

Quality and cost effective Pico PV systems, are ideal solar powered systems for rural students as they are portable to use both in and outside home in the evening.  And by which the following targets achieved.

• It contributes to achieve one of the Millennium Development Goals: Education for all
• Rural parents will be encouraged to send their children to school
• Number of detainees and dropout students will be reduced
• Gender equity and women empowerment will be exercised
• Ethiopia, as a developing nation, will have healthy and problem solver intellectuals to actively  involve in the green growth economy

Therefore Energy Development Actors (GOs, NGOs), Policy Makers, Clubs, and Charity Organizations: it is time to feel the pain of rural students (young nation serving the next generation), and design viable strategy to access clean off-grid lighting systems.

                      :By Dessalegn Berhanu