Gender Achievements and Prospects in Education

According to the report, as of January 1 2006, the first deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005, was missed. The GAP report is a multimedia project that aims to build on what people who work in development and education know and understand. It is designed to assess progress towards universal primary education, highlight innovations, identify obstacles, generate discussion and provide guidance. This report is the first step in an ongoing evaluation of progress towards gender parity in education. The GAP website has been created as support for this report.

The four sections of this report - overview of gender parity and education, stories from the field, assessments from experts, and report cards using the latest statistics - examine how quality education for children is crucial across all development fields, including sexual and reproductive health. Within the analysis, sexual abuse, early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and sex trafficking are all mentioned as events that can be mitigated through education.

The report proposes that gender parity in education will lead to gender equality in society. Quality education means more equal access to information, opportunity, self-determination, and political and social empowerment. One example that is provided is that education brings with it access to information about health issues such as HIV/AIDS. According to the report, life skills education that includes accurate information about the virus and its transmission is directly correlated to decreases in infection rates.

The report outlines that there are a wide variety of barriers to education for girls, including poverty, traditional gender roles, the existence of armed conflict and other crises, and lack of infrastructure. Before successful interventions can be crafted, the root causes of children’s absences must be identified. Uganda has been conducting school mapping, a strategy developed by the Girls’ Education Movement (GEM). Children identify the number of girls in each community, those who are not in school and the obstacles that keep them away. The exercise not only identifies the barriers, it also generates solutions, ranging from boys volunteering to walk girls on treacherous roads to building and maintaining clean latrines. Under the auspices of Global Movement for Children, members of the Ethiopian Teenagers’ Forum undertook a survey to find out why their peers were not in school. The teens found that the greatest barriers for children in Ethiopia were school fees and HIV/AIDS; also, money was scarce, and children were forced to help support their families.

Building and maintaining clean water and sanitation facilities is seen as an important measure in encouraging children, especially girls, to attend school. Another possible area for intervention is teacher training, including gender workshops. Another is encouraging parent participation. In the Gambia, Mothers’ Clubs have been set up in many villages to sensitise parents to the importance of girls’ education and to help mitigate traditions that keep daughters out of school. Another strategy involves the use of sport in engaging with children, and in promoting education. Sport can be an effective advocacy tool. International and national sports organisations have rallied support for girls’ education through global, regional, and national campaigns. In 2003, the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the United States was dedicated to ‘Go Girls! Education for Every Child’, the global initiative to get over 60 million out-of-school girls into the classroom. And the Asian Cricket Council joined UNICEF in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to promote ‘Fair Play for Girls’, raising awareness, and generating public support for girls’ education throughout the region.