by Saeanna Chingamuka – SANF 05 no 80
Southern Africa has made notable progress in gender equality in the completion rate of primary schooling for girls and boys, since adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000.
Countries in the region have remained committed to eliminating gender disparities in secondary education. Development of new policies and programmes, specifically targeting girls has been responsible for the considerable improvements in countries such as Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius and Namibia.
Education remains free at primary, secondary and tertiary levels in Mauritius and the Education Act specifies that no discrimination shall be exercised in the admission of students to schools. As such, more girls have been admitted into schools and have benefited especially in situations where there are limited family funds for children to go to school.
Coming out of a protracted civil war in 2002 that left an estimated one million children out of primary school, the Angolan government launched the “Back to School” campaign in February 2003. The programme aimed at introducing thousands of children to formal education across the country, particularly in provinces that suffered during the war.
In order to ensure access to education for the poor, Education Trust Funds have been established in various districts of Tanzania to assist girls and boys who perform well in examinations, but cannot afford to proceed to institutions of higher learning. In addition to this, a special fund for girls known as the Girls’ Secondary Education Support programme was established to support girls in need. Through this programme, 2,980 girls benefited between 1998 and 2002.
To overcome the problem of pregnancy as a major factor for girls’ dropouts, many governments in the region now allow girls back to school after childbirth. South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe introduced and maintain the readmission of girls who drop out of school due to pregnancy as a measure towards achieving gender balance and equity in the education sector as well as offering equal opportunities for education.
Realising the needs of rural children, the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture in Zimbabwe administers the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), which aids children to complete their education. The programme stipulates that 50 percent of pupils in secondary schools that benefit from BEAM must be female, and targets children in economic difficulties and orphans.
All these efforts have been made with the realisation that where gender and educational disparities are reduced, the social benefits can be seen in such areas as better ownership of family planning programmes, declining maternal and infant mortality rates, and better opportunities for the emerging generation. Research has also shown that education of girls has economic benefit for the girls themselves and society in terms of increase in Gross National Product (GNP), skilled personnel and increased participation in self-employment and in the informal sector.
Despite all these efforts, some challenges remain to attain intake parity. UNESCO reports that girls’ enrolments rise relative to boys as the proportion of female teachers increases. Therefore an effective method of ensuring gender parity is to equalise the gender balance among teachers.
There is great need to demand action particularly through the media to sensitise parents, reducing school fees for the girls in public primary schools and making education mandatory. So far, countries in the region have tended to place the entire burden of education on the public sector, but that focus must be modified, by actively incorporating the private sector into the educational reforms and adopting the concept of social responsibility for education.
SADC nations have entered into various commitments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which has a set of legally enforceable commitments on the rights to education and gender equality, and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) which recognises the role of education globally and its importance in uplifting the status of women.
The ongoing review on progress in implementing the MDGs provides opportunities to re-energise efforts made so far and also suggest steps that bring the attainment of goals closer. The key to progress in this direction is the acknowledgement that countries should be accountable primarily to their people for the policies adopted, to move from promises to delivery. (SARDC)
