The main purpose of this study was to examine the current status of girls ' participation in basicrneducation in the rural areas of Oromia, identify the major barriers i. e., in-school, and out-of-rnschool factors (socio-economic, socio-cultural and political) and indicate the major areas ofrnintervention to the regional policy makers and educational planners. A descriptive surveyrnmethod was employed to achieve this objective. Data from documents were obtained from thernannual statistical abstracts of the MOE, Oromia Education Bureau, and the 1994 Housing andrnPopulation Census. Furthermore, questionnaires and structured interviews were administeredrnto 42 teachers, 70 female students, 48 parents, and 50 out-of-school girls in the rural areas.rnGross Enrollment Ratios, annual rate of growth, and percentages were calculated to examine thernparticipation of girls in rural primary schools when compared with girls in urban areas andrnrural male students for the academic years 1994/95 to 1997/98. In addition, percentages, Chi-rnsquare, one way ANOVA and Tukey- HSD tests were used to analyse the data obtained fromrnquestionnaires and interviews. The results indicated that, in-school factors such as schoolrnschedule was identified as a common problem for both study areas. Moreover, absence ofrnseparate toilet for girls, and weak school-community relationships were found to be the majorrnobstacles in Muslim areas. Furthermore, distance from home to school was identified as arnproblem in Christian areas, while the majority of in-school factors were not considered as majorrnbarriers in both study areas. On the other hand, all socio-economic factors were identified asrnmajor impediments in all areas. A10st of the socio-cultural factors, on the other hand, werernindicated as major obstacles in Muslim areas rather than in Christian areas except lack ofrninterest in education, and low status of women in development activities which were identified asrncommon problems. On top of this, political factors such as perception of limited range of paidrnoccupations open to women, lack of upper primary and secondary schools, and low participationrnof local administrators to encourage girls' education were identified as common problems inrnboth areas. Hence, it is concluded that in most cases, the participation of girls in formal basicrneducation in the rural areas of Oromia is a function of out-of-school factors. Therefore, it isrnrecommended that the regional policy makers and educational planners should pay morernattention to increase the demand for education so as to increase the participation of girls {nrnrural primary schools of the region.