Pharo School Homosha

The Ethiopian school transforming outcomes for marginalised girls through its fully-funded STEM learning model

Pharo School Homosha, a secondary tuition free school in Asossa, Benishangul Gumuz State, Ethiopia, is shifting realities for Ethiopian girls by combining safe boarding, full scholarships, and a high-performance learning model designed to help them overcome barriers, including poverty, displacement, insecurity, early marriage, and limited access to secondary education in one of the country’s most remote and underserved regions.

Access to education in the region has long been challenging, particularly for girls, whose enrolment rates in some communities fall as low as 32%. When they do enrol, many students arrive with significant learning gaps, including limited foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

To address these inequalities, the girls-only school combines Ethiopia’s national curriculum with intensive STEM education and English-language development. Its model is designed to help students rapidly close learning gaps while building confidence, leadership, and long-term ambition. Unlike many elite boarding schools in Ethiopia, Pharo School Homosha intentionally admits students with lower entrance examination scores, focusing on their potential. Despite this inclusive approach, the school has consistently ranked as the top-performing secondary school in the region. Showing that when given the chance these girls have a tenacious appetite for learning and will stop at nothing to achieve great things.

Beyond academics, students participate inservice learning, debate, problem-solving, and group projects that help build their confidence, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Classroom discussions and leadership activities help them become more comfortable expressing themselves in English, which is used for teaching at the secondary level. More than 15 student led clubs provide numerous opportunities for character building and enrichment. These clubs, primarily run by the students themselves and supported by the faculty, include robotics, STEM, Model United Nations, science competitions, arts, piano, sports, and community service.

Teachers work closely with the girls to become mentors while also providing one-on-one individual support. The school also invests heavily in teacher development and leadership staff, including the school principal, who actively teaches classes to share effective teaching models and support the ongoing professional growth of staff.

Families are supported through the school’s full-scholarship boarding model, which provides accommodation, meals, and academics. The boarding structure is particularly important in communities where long travel distances, insecurity, and poor infrastructure make daily access to school difficult or unsafe. The faculty also works closely with families and local communities to address wider social challenges affecting girls’ education, including early marriage, unwanted pregnancy, and dropout linked to insecurity.

Academic outcomes have been remarkable, with students achieving a 100% pass rate in 2024 and 99% in 2025. In 2025, 22 students scored above 75%, with 12 students achieving scores above 80%. Across its first graduating cohorts, 135 out of 137 alumni have progressed into local and international universities, including institutions in Turkey, Rwanda, Malaysia, Uganda, and the United States. This year, one student secured a full scholarship through the Fulbright programme to attend the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Partnerships have been crucial to building an ecosystem around girls’ education where infrastructure and support systems are limited. The local government helped set up the school by providing land and educational materials. The school works closely with nearby UNHCR refugee camps to offer education resources to refugee students, showing its commitment to inclusion and fairness. International volunteers from the Pharo network guide and support students by providing online conversations, mentoring, and sharing global viewpoints.