Education
The second millennium development goal is - Primary Education for All. These four words for me personally are so obvious like saying that water is wet or that while staying in the sun makes you warmer. But after reading couple of articles and watching short movies I feel privileged that I can educate not only in primary school, but also in high school and after this go to a college. In my country -Poland -we have compulsory education till we become 18 years old. In meaning of lack of education all over the world - compulsory can mean also that everybody are allowed to learn without any gender or financial restrictions. It is also strange for me that so many children can exist without reading ability.
According to the education table of unicef the smallest number of literacy rate among the youth was in Eastern and Southern Africa with percentage of 75 by males and 64 by females. If we would like to choose the country which has the lowest literacy rate it would be Burkina Faso with percentage of 40 males and 27 females. Comparing to some European countries like Portugal, Slovenia or Italy that all have the same level of 100% we see a enormous gap. These differences could explain the fact, that in less developed countries the primary enrollment ratio is also very low. If the children do not attend to school, they cannot get some basic skills, like reading abilities, which are necessary to develop themselves.
The table shows us also that in East Asia and Pacific the primary school enrollment ratio is the largest worldwide with numbers of 98 for males and 97 for females. The smallest one is in West and Central Africa with percentage of 68 for males and 59 for females. The highest percentage was in Japan, Spain and Canada and the lowest was in Djibouti – in East Africa. As we can see in most of countries are less female students then male students. The cause could be here the tradition of the country – for example that woman should stay at home and take care of it, or also religion, habits. But the more people will be well educated, the more opportunists their country will have in the future.
“Eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education” – was an idea included to the second millennium development goal. The percentage of enrollments to primary schools between genders in low income countries in 80’ was very uneven. In those days the percentage gap between boys and girls was at the level of 38% for females and 62% for males. Nowadays the rates are close to 48% for females and 52% for males. This fact shows, that these countries made a huge step to avoid gender gap in education. But still there is a big gender gap in some countries like for instance Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, where only 40% students in primary school are females and others are males.
Used by writing:
- UNICEF 2008. Basic education and gender equality.
- The World Bank 2008. Education and Development.
- The World Bank 2008. Girls' education.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNBvtM1hmzQ&feature=player_embedded
Hey Mikolaj,
OdpowiedzUsuńI like your introduction and at the begginning of the last paragraph you show nicely how the primary and secondary school ratios have incresed for both males and females since the 80's. Even if there has been some development in the education, but I think that the gap is still huge and that means that enough effort has not been made (or maybe we have set the goels too high?) You mention that by educating the both genders the country gains more opportunities, I agree, but I think that there are also many other very important reasons such as the health issues, among them reducing maternal mortality and the effects of HIV/Aids, but the most important is that women are equal men and no culture or habit can explain oppressing women.
As one of the articles states that pimary education is not enough for women to overcome their multiple challenges that they will face in their lives. (Grown, C., Rao Gupta, G. & Pande, R. 2005.) But how will the women be able to recieve enough tools, since for many of them even attending primary school is not possible? How could the nations take more action in this? Have we set the goals too high and are they not enough culture sensitive?
You also mention that in over all rates the female education is lower, even if many countries there is no difference between the rates of men and women. I agree that reading is highly significant for an individual, but sometimes it seems that the emphasis is only put on that and the and overall quality of education is forgotten.
Sources:
- Grown, C., Rao Gupta, G. & Pande, R. 2005. Taking action to improve women's health through gender equality and women's empowerment.
-Rogers, S. 2004. What men think about gender equality : lessons from Oxfam GB staff in Delhi and Dhaka. In book Gender Equality and Men . Learning from Practice. Edited by Sandy Ruxton. Oxfam GB, 177-192.
Hi Mikolaj,
OdpowiedzUsuńI also liked the introduction. We often take things as certainties and don't pay attention to the privileges that we have.
You analyze the primary school enrollment ratios all over the world which gives a good picture of the issue that we are dealing with. Then you have conisdered some reasons why there is a gap between men and female. One of the reasons is the tradition, that women should take care of home and children. Gita Sen has mentioned that this problem is even bigger in rural areas where women has to take care of the crops and livestock ans so on. I agree to that but is there something that can be done to fix that? It is also possible that women do educate themselves but when they start the family they concentrate to take care of that. That is also a cultural issue which is very difficult to change.
Gita Sen: Poverty as Gendered Experience: The policy implications
Hi Miko,
OdpowiedzUsuńWas happy to see the part in the last paragraph that gives a solid proof of (slow) progress in enrollment percentages in terms of gender equality. Needless to say, there still a long way to go, but it's good to see that there's some progress taking place - progress, that is not completely due to the margin of error in these studies!
Having said that, there was another point that occurred to me while going through the texts on the education for women. Although most of us are no doubt content to see that since the WW II the astonishing gap between men and women has, generally speaking, become slightly less drastic, the actual dynamics of any given society are much more complex than what one might gather from, say, a study of enrollment ratios or studies that deal with graduation of male and female students from the university, and so on. Although the actual percentage of women who graduate from the university or who successfully finish elementary school grows, as it does, there's still a lot of questions the answers for which might be a little depressing but that need to be faced.
How many young women who have successfully finished their elementary school / high school / university can actually make use of their education in terms of getting a job that that is in par with their level of education or experience? What's the ratio of men getting such jobs compared to the same statistical value in the case of women? How often the families and other social circles of educated young women put pressure to them so that they would not pursue their studies and/or get a job they would like to get? What's the same statistical value for men? Questions such as these have to be included to better understand the actual reality for both young and adult women.
Post education is not the unique solution. It improves the gender equality and the health of women but there are other influences, too, which take effect on promote health. The infrastructure is here the headword. Clean water and sanitation service can have a big impact on health. If there are water places next to the women house they have not to wear heavy containers which can reduce neck injuries or other diseases which can come from the heavy weight. Improvements in women health need rectifications of inequalities and disadvantages in education and economic opportunities. The content, quality and relevance of education have to be improved in such manner that perpetuates discrimination and inequality. Governments have to guarantee effective and independent property and inheritance rights for improving economic opportunities for women though allocate all resources which are necessary to improve female health.
OdpowiedzUsuńHello Mikolaj,
OdpowiedzUsuńthank you for your positive comment. I think there are still a lot of more reasons why the education is so different. The problems which I mentioned, are only a few examples of the whole, but I think it was enough to get an idea, what it have to improve.
Regards
Brinii
Hi, guys thank you all for your answers.
OdpowiedzUsuńChascona - I agree with your opinion that men and women should be treaded equally in each culture and nothing can be an excuse to oppress them - it is a natural human right. About your remark that maybe the aims were set to high -I don't think so - in my opinion they need more time to achieve these goals, some countries will need plenty of time, but hopefully they will manage it. But you are also right, that sometimes the quality of education might be forgotten.
Virver - in my opinion the culture issue and tradition are extremely hard to change -maybe if woman would have an example of other some well-known woman in their country, who copes with educating herself and also working, or helping at home, others woman could follow her like the pattern - it is only my private idea.
Healthypub2 - your questions are very important to get a wide picture of performance of education, but unfortunately also hard to answer, because of the fact of data collection problem. For example how to measure if somebody made use of his/hers education knowledge to find good job ?
Brinii - you are absolutely right that education is not the only one factor affecting for health. As you have mentioned the infrastructure is also heavily important - it gives basic safety. How can anyone think about education when the nearest drinkable water is very far from the house.
Once again, thanks everyone for comments
Regards Mikolaj