case study of women's education

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A new generation: 25 years of efforts for gender equality in education

2020 Gender Report

Credit: Johanna de Tessières / HI

KEY MESSAGES

Over the past 25 years, girls’ access to education has dramatically improved, closing a four percentage point gap in enrolment ratios. In addition, girls have reached or overtaken boys in terms of learning outcomes in reading and mathematics.

However, girls, particularly those with intersecting disadvantages in terms of poverty or disability, still face the worst forms of acute exclusion in the world’s poorest countries.

Education is a critical lever for women’s rights. A focus on education, particularly that of girls, can break the cycle of disadvantage between generations, as children tend to acquire more education than their parents. At the same time, the extent to which parental education determines children’s education, while declining slowly, is still high,which calls for interventions to prevent inequality from persisting.

Gender equality in education cannot be achieved by the education sector alone.Residual negative gender norms in society bring gender bias in education, influencing teachers’ attitudes, subject and career choices, and affect women’s opportunities later in life.

Countries need to focus on making schools more inclusive for all students, whatever their background, ability or identity. This requires better sanitation facilities in schools,greater attention to school-related gender-based violence, including online, and policies encouraging pregnant girls to go back to school. The message of inclusion resonates strongly at a time when COVID-19 has exacerbated inequality.

Inside the Report

• Introduction
• Laws and Policies
• Partnerships

Key findings

There has been a generational leap in access to education for girls over the past 25 years.„.

• Since 1995, the number of girls enrolled in primary and secondary school has risen by 180 million.„
• Globally, equal numbers of girls and boys were enrolled in primary and secondary education in 2018, whereas in 1995 around 90 girls were enrolled for every 100 boys; significant increases in Southern Asia, and India in particular, drove this growth.„
• Female enrolment tripled in tertiary education; at the country level, gender disparity at men’s expense exists in 74% of the countries with data.„
• Between 1995 and 2018, the percentage of countries with gender parity in education rose from 56% to 65% in primary, from 45% to 51% in lower secondary and from 13% to 24% in upper secondary education.„
• Among the 56 countries with data for 2000–18, primary completion rates improved faster for girls than boys. In one-third of the 86 countries with 2013–18 data, girls were more likely to complete primary school than boys.

Girls’ learning outcomes are improving faster than boys’, but new gender gaps are developing in digital literacy skills and a majority of illiterate adults are still women.„

• Girls’ advantage over boys in reading widened in more than half of the 38 countries and territories that took part in PISA in both 2000 and 2018. Girls now perform as well as boys in mathematics in over half of countries and do better than boys in one-quarter of countries.„
• Disparity in ICT skills is emerging. Among 10 low- and middle-income countries with detailed data, women are less likely to have used a basic arithmetic formula in a spreadsheet in the 7 poorest countries, while parity exists in the 3 richest countries.„
• The share of women among illiterate youth has decreased since around 2005, especially in Eastern and South-eastern Asia. But the share of illiterate adult women has remained constant for the past 20 years at around 63%. And in 2018, fewer than 80 adult women were literate for every 100 adult men in 12 countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

Despite progress, girls continue to face the worst forms of exclusion.„

• Globally, three-quarters of children of primary school age who may never set foot in school are girls.„In 2018, fewer than 90 girls were enrolled for every 100 boys in 7 countries in primary, 14 countries in lower secondary and 23 countries in upper secondary education.„
• Fewer than 80 girls for every 100 boys completed primary in 4 countries, lower secondary in 15 countries and upper secondary in 22 countries.

Gender interacts with other disadvantages to exacerbate exclusion from education.„

• In at least 20 countries, hardly any poor, rural young woman complete upper secondary school.„
• In 24 countries participating in PISA 2018, over 70% of poor boys did not achieve the minimum reading proficiency level.„
• The most disadvantaged women are further left behind in terms of literacy skills. In 59 countries, women aged 15 to 49 from the poorest households are 4 times more likely to be illiterate than those from the richest households.„
• Women with disabilities tend to be particularly disadvantaged. In Mozambique, 49% of men with disabilities can read and write, compared with 17% of women with disabilities.

Some subjects are still male-dominated, which affects equality in work and adult learning opportunities.„

• Globally, the share of females in TVET enrolment declined from 45% in 1995 to 42% in 2018.
• Globally, the percentage of females studying engineering, manufacturing and construction or ICT is below 25% in over two-thirds of countries.„
• Gender segregation by field of study constrains girls’ choice of career. In OECD countries only 14% of girls who were top performers in science or mathematics expected to work in science and engineering, compared with 26% of top-performing boys. Women account for less than 1% of the applicant pool for technical jobs in artificial intelligence and data science in Silicon Valley.„
• Previous learning experience, personal disposition towards learning, life circumstances and structural barriers all have an impact on whether adults participate in education. Women in European countries are almost twice as likely as men not to participate in adult education for family-related reasons.

Policy interventions can reduce the chance of education disadvantage being passed to the next generation.„

• The gender gap in the share of children who have attained a higher education level than their parents – absolute intergenerational mobility – decreased for each 10-year cohort born from the 1940s to the 1980s. Globally, a slightly higher percentage of daughters (52%) than sons (51%) had higher education levels than their parents in the 1980s cohort, although mobility is still lower for girls in low- and lower-middle income countries.
• Children’s education relies less and less on the education of their parents – relative intergenerational mobility – although girls’ years of schooling are still more aligned to their parents’ than boys’, and particularly to that of their mothers.„
• Girls are more influenced by their mothers’ than their fathers’ education in low- and middle-income countries. In the cohort of girls born in the 1980s, an extra year of maternal education leads to seven extra months of education in low-income countries.„
• Policy interventions can reduce the extent to which education disadvantage is passed on to the next generation. Potentially successful interventions include quotas in tertiary enrolment for vulnerable groups, scholarships and cash transfers, and removal of user fees in primary education. The correlation between mothers’ education and their children’s fell by 12.5% when user fees were lifted.

Increasing numbers of laws and policies promotes gender equality in education on paper, but still often fails in practice.„

• Globally, 105 countries have ratified the 1960 UNESCO Convention Against Discrimination in Education and 23 have signed since 1995.„
• Education ministries have sponsored laws promoting gender equality in 50% of countries and policies to that effect in 42%. About 46% of countries have legislation and 58% policies promoting gender equality in education under other ministries’ leadership.

Strong political commitment has reduced early pregnancy rates and provided education for pregnant girls and young parents.„

• The prevalence of early pregnancy fell by one-third between 1995 and 2020, from some 60 to 40 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. „The share of women aged 20 to 24 who married before age 18, a factor contributing to early pregnancy, fell from 25% in 1995 to 20% in 2013–19.
• „In Argentina, a holistic approach combining two laws, flexible learning programmes, nurseries in schools, re-entry programmes for vulnerable children and non-formal alternative secondary education programmes has helped protect pregnant girls’ and young parents’ right to education; meanwhile the adolescent fertility rate fell from 61 in 1995 to 49 in 2018.
• Activism and accountability mechanisms can help protect pregnant girls’ right to go to school. In Sierra Leone, official policy in 2015 banned pregnant girls from school. In 2019, after several years of activism, the ban was ruled discriminatory by the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States and was lifted.„
• Multisectoral cooperation and ties between government departments help address the intersecting needs of many girls and young women of child-bearing age. In the United Kingdom, measures to address these needs included a protective legal framework, a teenage pregnancy unit and strategy, better childcare, awareness-raising programmes, advocacy aimed at young men, and support from the non-government sector. These measures helped reduce the number of conceptions per 1,000 15- to 17-year-olds from 42 to 18 between 1995 and 2017.

The prevalence of early pregnancy can be linked to lack of access to sexual and reproductive health education.„

• Ambiguous language in laws and weak accountability in enforcement can enable schools to avoid teaching comprehensive sexuality education. Argentina made the subject compulsory in 2006, but only 16 out of 23 provinces adhered to the policy or passed their own legislation on the subject, likely because of opposition among religious schools.
• „In Sierra Leone, the number of married and sexually active 15- to 19-year-old women using contraception doubled from 10% to 20% between 2008 and 2013, but dropped to just 14% in 2019, possibly due to a 2008 decision to end comprehensive sexuality education in schools.„
• Clear guidance on sexuality education can help. In the United Kingdom, relationship and sex education was made compulsory in all secondary schools from 2019. Guides were published to help schools inform and work with parents to overcome resistance.

Gender-responsive school counselling could improve gender balance in subject choices.

• „Counsellors often promote gender stereotypes, which affect students’ education and career choices. A survey of secondary school counsellors in the US state of Wisconsin found that, even though school counsellors believed female students were more likely to succeed in mathematics than males, they were less likely to recommend mathematics over English to female students.„
• Clear gender-responsive strategies are needed to redress the balance. Botswana has a comprehensive guidance and counselling programme and a Gender Reference Committee but lacks an overall framework on ways to help girls and women who wish to pursue TVET and STEM subjects.„
• A lack of gender-specific measures in counselling and career advice at the state level in Germany means the increase of the share of girls in STEM subjects between 1999 and 2017 is more likely related to an online information hub on STEM for girls and collaboration between ministries of women, youth, labour and social affairs.„
• National strategies on TVET and STEM in the United Arab Emirates make no reference to gender or gender-responsive counselling practices and women are still under-represented in these fields of study.

Countries still produce textbooks with gender-based stereotypes and limited references to women and girls.„

• The share of females in secondary school English language textbook text and images was 44% in Malaysia and Indonesia, 37% in Bangladesh and 24% in Punjab province, Pakistan.„
• Partnerships and participatory processes at all phases of textbook development and delivery need to be in place for successful reform.
• „In Comoros, textbooks still contain gender stereotypes, partly because textbook developers have not received training or sensitization.„
• Ethiopia has shown commitment to gender equality in education, including through textbook revision. Yet stereotypes remain, which can be attributed to women being excluded from textbook review and development, lack of training on processes, and insufficient commitment from authorities in challenging discriminatory norms.„
• Nepal has made materials more gender-sensitive by introducing guidance for gender-responsive learning materials and a gender expert to review content, as well as gender audits and formal reviews of all materials every five years, although some of these measures have not been fully implemented.„
• In Europe, 23 out of 49 countries do not address sexual orientation and gender identity explicitly in their curricula.

Gender inequality exists in teacher recruitment and promotion to leadership, and more gender-sensitive teacher education is needed.„

• Women make up 94% of teachers in pre-primary, 66% of teachers in primary, 54% in secondary and 43% in tertiary education.„
• There is a glass ceiling for women trying to attain leadership positions. In a case study of schools in Brasilia, Brazil, 75% had only male candidates for school leadership positions. For the past 25 years, all federal education ministers have been men. In Bulgaria, just 5 of 96 education ministers in 140 years have been women.„
• Teachers still expect girls and boys to have different academic abilities, which affects academic outcomes. In Italy, girls assigned to teachers with implicit gender bias underperformed in mathematics and chose less demanding secondary schools, following teachers’ recommendations.

Millions of schools are not inclusive, often due to poor infrastructure and unsafe learning environments.„

• Globally, over a fifth of primary schools had no single-sex basic sanitation facilities in 2018. Some 335 million girls attend primary and secondary schools lacking facilities essential for menstrual hygiene.„
• Even when single-sex sanitation facilities exist, they may not be accessible to all students: less than 1 in 10 schools with improved sanitation had accessible facilities for students with disabilities in El Salvador, Fiji, Tajikistan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Yemen.

School-related gender-based violence impedes inclusive education of good quality.„

• Girls are more likely to experience verbal and sexual harassment, abuse and violence, while boys are more often subject to physical violence.„
• Violence is often directed at those whose gender expression does not fit binary gender norms. In the United Kingdom, 45% of lesbian, gay and bisexual students and 64% of transgender students were bullied in schools.„
• The rapid advancement of technology has increased risks of threats, intimidation and harassment. In European Union countries, one in five 18- to 29-year-olds reported having experienced cyber-harassment.

Change in education will not happen until unequal gender norms in society are stamped out.„

• Gender discrimination was considered the most important global problem by 8% of adults in the latest World Values Survey. A return to traditional values is an increasing threat to women’s rights. The proportion of people with moderate and intense bias against gender equality increased between 2005–09 and 2010–14 in 15 of 31 countries surveyed.„
• Attitudes towards female foeticide have not improved with education. In urban India, the male to female child sex ratio is inversely associated with female education.„
• Gender discrimination is a threat to inclusive education. In 11 former republics of the Soviet Union and in Mongolia, the level of discrimination in social institutions is 24%, on average, which has reduced women’s average years of schooling by 16%.„
• Parents’ gender stereotypes can stand in the way of inclusion. In Sokoto, Nigeria, some parents believe access to secondary school would prevent girls from marrying. In Fiji, parents expect boys to assist with cash crop farming, which can lead them to disengage with school.

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Key data on girls and women’s right to education

This page presents several graphics analyzing the data generated from  HerAtlas , UNESCO’s interactive tool monitoring girls and women’s right to education worldwide . The graphics are updated regularly to reflect the latest data from the tool. 

Unless specified otherwise, data source is HerAtlas .

Right to education, pregnant and parenting girls

According to our monitoring tool, worldwide, 2% of countries restrict the right to education of married, pregnant and parenting girls and women in their legal framework. These countries are located in three different regions. The restrictions could either prohibit them from attending school or sitting an exam, limiting them to attend adult or evening classes, or separating them from their peers and isolating them for fear that they would ‘influence’ other students.

Data demonstrates that secondary school-aged girls are substantially more likely to be out of school when the legal right to education of pregnant and parenting girls is restricted, especially at the upper secondary level. It also follows the general trend, as there are more adolescent out-of-school at the upper secondary level.

62% of countries do not have a legislation that explicitly protect girls’ right to education in case of pregnancy but 33% do have such provisions, which are sometimes very detailed and protective. Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the most countries that protect explicitly their right to education, followed by Europe and North America and then Africa.

While in 2019, 8 countries were restricting the right to education of pregnant, parenting and married girls in their legislation, four countries in the African region have put an end to such ban, therefore leaving only four countries with an explicit ban. 

The following graphics represent the data of indicator 12 of Her Atlas. According to the methodology of HerAtlas , the legislation is considered as explicitly protecting the right to education of pregnant and parenting girls only if there is a provision mentioning expressly pregnancy, parenting and education. Guaranteeing the right to education without discrimination is not considered as an explicit protection for this indicator.

Right to education, child marriage and gender-based violence in schools

According to the Joint CEDAW General Recommendation / CRC General Comment , capable child below the age of 18 may be allowed to get married provided that the child is at least 16 years old and that such decisions are made by a judge based on legitimate exceptional grounds defined by law and on the evidence of maturity.

Worldwide, 17% of countries still allow marriage before the age 18 years old for girls. 44% allow it from 18 years old, but with exceptions before that age. In such cases, exceptions can for example require a parental consent only, or a judicial one but with a minimum age below 16, and an absolute minimum age is not always set. 34% of countries do set a minimum age of marriage at 18 for girls, with no exception or judicial exceptions only with an absolute minimum age set at 16 years old.

At the regional level, Europe and North America is the region with the fewest number of countries that allow marriage before 18 years old for girls and with the highest number of countries setting 18 as the minimum age without exceptions, or only judicial ones with an absolute minimum age set at 16.

Globally, the percentage of child marriage is higher in countries where education is neither compulsory nor free. The percentage of women aged 20 to 24 who were first married or in union before their 18 is more than halved in countries where education is compulsory for nine years or more and fee for 12 years or more in comparison to countries where education is neither compulsory nor free.

Regarding legal protection against gender-based violence and corporal punishment within education establishments, 14% of countries provide for a wide protection (protecting from corporal punishment and physical, psychological and sexual violence), 54% with a partial protection, and 29% do not provide protection, among those, some authorizes the use of corporal punishment in schools. At the regional level, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the most countries providing a wide protection, but also with the most countries that do not provide for protection.

Right to education, compulsory, and free education

Worldwide, 16% of countries still do not guarantee the right to education in their Constitution or laws. Among the 84% of countries that legally protect the right to education, 58% explicitly guarantee it without discrimination based on sex and/or gender.

At the regional level, it is in Asia Pacific that the highest percentage of countries not guaranteeing the right to education can be found, while it is in the Arab region that there is the highest percentage of countries legally protecting the right to education without discrimination. Finally, both the Arab region and the Latin America & Caribbean region have the highest percentage of countries explicitly guaranteeing the right to education without discrimination based on sex and/or gender.

Regarding compulsory and free pre-primary education, worldwide, 27% of countries guarantee it in their legislation while 19% legally guarantee free or compulsory pre-primary education. At the regional level, it is in the Latin America & Caribbean region that there is the highest percentage of countries legally guaranteeing compulsory and free pre-primary education, followed by the Europe & North America region.

At the global level, 31% of countries legally guarantee compulsory primary and secondary education for at least nine years and free education for at least 12 years, while 5% of countries do not guarantee neither compulsory nor free primary and secondary education. The others either guarantee compulsory or free primary and secondary education, or they do guarantee both, but the duration of compulsory education is less than nine years, or the duration of free education is less than 12 years. At the regional level, it is in the Europe & North American region that there is the highest percentage of countries legally guaranteeing compulsory and free primary and secondary education, for a duration of respectively at least nine and 12 years.

Out of school and enrolment rate compared to the legal protection of free and compulsory education

When pre-primary education is neither legally compulsory nor free, the out-of-school rate of girls of primary school age is higher than the out-of-school rate of boys of the same age. On the contrary, when pre-primary education is legally compulsory and free, the out-of-school rate of girls of primary school age is lower than the out-of-school rate of boys of primary school age. For both boys and girls, the out-of-school rate of children of primary school age is lower when pre-primary education is legally compulsory and free.

Similarly, the out-of-school rate for children, adolescents and youth of primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school age is divided by three when primary and secondary education is compulsory for at least nine years and free for at least twelve years, compared to the out-of-school rate when education is neither compulsory nor free. While the out-of-school rate of girls is higher than the one of boys when education is neither compulsory nor free, the out-of-school rate of boys is higher than the out-of-school rate of girls when education is compulsory for at least 9 years and free for at least 12 years.

Finally, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) for tertiary education is multiplied by 6 when primary and secondary education is compulsory for 9 years and free for 12 years, compared to the tertiary education GER when primary and secondary education is neither compulsory nor free. The GER of boys in tertiary education is the same than the GER of girls when primary and secondary education is neither compulsory nor free, but the GER of boys is lower than the GER of girls when primary and secondary education is compulsory for 9 years and free for 12 years.

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Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity

By Jodi Kantor

• Sept. 7, 2013

BOSTON — When the members of the Harvard Business School class of 2013 gathered in May to celebrate the end of their studies, there was little visible evidence of the experiment they had undergone for the last two years. As they stood amid the brick buildings named after businessmen from Morgan to Bloomberg, black-and-crimson caps and gowns united the 905 graduates into one genderless mass.

But during that week’s festivities, the Class Day speaker, a standout female student, alluded to “the frustrations of a group of people who feel ignored.” Others grumbled that another speechmaker, a former chief executive of a company in steep decline, was invited only because she was a woman. At a reception, a male student in tennis whites blurted out, as his friends laughed, that much of what had occurred at the school had “been a painful experience.”

He and his classmates had been unwitting guinea pigs in what would have once sounded like a far-fetched feminist fantasy: What if Harvard Business School gave itself a gender makeover, changing its curriculum, rules and social rituals to foster female success?

The country’s premier business training ground was trying to solve a seemingly intractable problem. Year after year, women who had arrived with the same test scores and grades as men fell behind. Attracting and retaining female professors was a losing battle; from 2006 to 2007, a third of the female junior faculty left.

Some students, like Sheryl Sandberg, class of ’95, the Facebook executive and author of “Lean In,” sailed through. Yet many Wall Street-hardened women confided that Harvard was worse than any trading floor, with first-year students divided into sections that took all their classes together and often developed the overheated dynamics of reality shows. Some male students, many with finance backgrounds, commandeered classroom discussions and hazed female students and younger faculty members, and openly ruminated on whom they would “kill, sleep with or marry” (in cruder terms). Alcohol-soaked social events could be worse.

“You weren’t supposed to talk about it in open company,” said Kathleen L. McGinn, a professor who supervised a student study that revealed the grade gap. “It was a dirty secret that wasn’t discussed.”

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• Social Policy

Education's Role in Empowering Women and Promoting Gender Inequality: A Critical Review

• October 2023
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Education as the Pathway towards Gender Equality

About the author.

Amartya Sen, often referred to as the father of the concept of ‘human development’, reminds us of a quote by H.G. Wells, where he said that “human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”. Sen maintains that “if we continue to leave vast sections of the people of the world outside the orbit of education, we make the world not only less just, but also less secure”. To Sen, the gender aspect of education is a direct link between illiteracy and women’s security.

Not being able to read or write is a significant barrier for underprivileged women, since this can lead to their failure to make use of even the rather limited rights they may legally have (to own land or other property, or to appeal against unfair judgment and unjust treatment). There are often legal rights in rule books that are not used because the aggrieved parties cannot read those rule books. Gaps in schooling can, therefore, directly lead to insecurity by distancing the deprived from the ways and means of fighting against that deprivation. 1

For Sen, illiteracy and innumeracy are forms of insecurity in themselves, “not to be able to read or write or count or communicate is a tremendous deprivation. The extreme case of insecurity is the certainty of deprivation, and the absence of any chance of avoiding that fate”. 2 The link between education and security underlines the importance of education as akin to a basic need in the twenty-first century of human development.

GENDERED EDUCATION GAPS: SOME CRITICAL FACTS

While a moral and political argument can continue to be made for the education of girls and women, some facts speak powerfully to the issue at hand. Girls accounted for 53 per cent of the 61 million children of primary school age who were out of school in 2010. Girls accounted for 49 per cent of the 57 million children out of school in 2013. In surveys of 30 countries with more than 100,000 out-of-school children, 28 per cent of girls were out of school on average compared to 25 per cent of boys. Completion of primary school is a particular problem for girls in sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia. 3

Surveys in 55 developing countries reveal that girls are more likely to be out of school at a lower secondary age than boys, regardless of the wealth or location of the household. Almost two thirds of the world’s 775 million illiterate adults are women. In developing regions, there are 98 women per 100 men in tertiary education. There are significant inequalities in tertiary education in general, as well as in relation to areas of study, with women being over-represented in the humanities and social sciences and significantly under-represented in engineering, science and technology.

Gender-based violence in schools undermines the right to education and presents a major challenge to achieving gender equality in education because it negatively impacts girls’ participation and their retention in school. In addition, ineffective sexual and reproductive health education inhibits adolescents’ access to information and contributes to school dropouts, especially among girls who have reached puberty.

The education of girls and women can lead to a wide range of benefits from improved maternal health, reduced infant mortality and fertility rates to increased prevention against HIV and AIDS. 4 Educated mothers are more likely to know that HIV can be transmitted by breastfeeding, and that the risk of mother-to-child transmission can be reduced by taking drugs during pregnancy.

Each extra year of a mother’s schooling reduces the probability of infant mortality by 5-10 per cent. Children of mothers with secondary education or higher are twice as likely to survive beyond age 5 compared to those whose mothers have no education. Improvements in women’s education explained half of the reduction in child deaths between 1990 and 2009. A child born to a mother who can read is 50 per cent more likely to survive past age 5. In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 1.8 million children’s lives could have been saved in 2008 if their mothers had at least a secondary education. In Indonesia, 68 per cent of children with mothers who have attended secondary school are immunized, compared with 19 per cent of children whose mothers have no primary schooling. Wages, agricultural income and productivity—all critical for reducing poverty— are higher where women involved in agriculture receive a better education. Each additional year of schooling beyond primary offers greater payoffs for improved opportunities, options and outcomes for girls and women.

In the varied discussions on the post-2015 education related agendas, there was strong consensus that gender equality in education remains a priority. Various inputs noted that inequalities in general, and particularly gender equality, need to be addressed simultaneously on multiple levels—economic, social, political and cultural. A response on behalf of the International Women’s Health Coalition maintained that “all girls, no matter how poor, isolated or disadvantaged, should be able to attend school regularly and without the interruption of early pregnancy, forced marriage, maternal injuries and death, and unequal domestic and childcare burdens”.

Other inputs highlighted the importance of ensuring access to post-basic and post-secondary education for girls and women. Referring to secondary education, the German Foundation for World Population noted that the “completion of secondary education has a strong correlation with girls marrying later and delaying first pregnancy.” While access to good quality education is important for girls and women, preventing gender-based violence and equality through education clearly also remains a priority.

Gender-based discrimination in education is, in effect, both a cause and a consequence of deep-rooted differences in society. Disparities, whether in terms of poverty, ethnic background, disability, or traditional attitudes about their status and role all undermine the ability of women and girls to exercise their rights. Moreover, harmful practices such as early marriage, gender-based violence, as well as discriminatory education laws and policies still prevent millions of girls from enrolling and completing their respective education. 5

Additionally, given the extensive and growing participation of women in income generating activities, education for girls and women is particularly important, especially in attempting to reverse gendered patterns of discrimination. Not only is it impossible to achieve gender equality without education, but expanding education opportunities for all can help stimulate productivity and thereby also reduce the economic vulnerability of poor households.

GENDER EQUALITY, EQUITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Equity is the strongest framing principle of a post-2015 rights-based agenda, and underlines the need to redress historical and structural inequalities in order to provide access to quality education at all levels. This heralds what was effectively one of the strongest themes that emerged in the post-2015 education consultations, i.e., a rights-based approach in which rights are indivisible. This implies that all aspects of education should be considered from a rights perspective, including structural features of education systems, methods of education, as well as the contents of the education curricula. Indeed, overcoming structural barriers to accessing good quality education is vital for realizing education rights for all.

In related post-2015 consultations, equity is affirmed as a fundamental value in education. Several inputs noted that inequality in education remains a persistent challenge. This is connected to a focus in the Millennium Development Goals on averages without an accompanying consideration of trends beneath the averages. Many contributions in the education consultation, as well as in the other thematic consultations, highlighted the lack of attention to marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Equal access to good quality education requires addressing wide-ranging and persistent inequalities in society and should include a stronger focus on how different forms of inequality intersect to produce unequal outcomes for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Post-2015 consultations suggest that overcoming inequality requires a goal that makes national governments accountable for providing minimum standards and implementing country specific plans for basic services, including education. Equity in education also implies various proactive and targeted measures to offer progressive support to disadvantaged groups.

Amartya Sen notes empirical work which has brought out very clearly how the relative respect and regard for women’s well-being is strongly influenced by their literacy and educated participation in decisions within and outside the family. Even the survival disadvantage of women compared with men in many developing countries (which leads to “such terrible phenomenon as a hundred million of ‘missing women’) seems to go down sharply, and may even get eliminated, with progress in women’s empowerment, for which literacy is a basic ingredient”.

In the summer of 2009, the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued a report entitled “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future”, which makes a disturbing link between increasing child labour and the preference being given to boys when making decisions on education of children. The report states that in cultures in which a higher value is placed on education of male children, girls risk being taken out of school and are then likely to enter the workforce at an early age. The ILO report noted global estimates where more than 100 million girls were involved in child labour, and many were exposed to some of its worst forms.

Much of the research around women and education highlights the importance of investing in the education of girls as an effective way of tackling the gamut of poverty. This is in line with assertions made in numerous other references, which also point to a strong link between education, increased women’s (as opposed to girls’) labour force participation, the wages they earn and overall productivity, all of which ultimately yields higher benefits for communities and nations. In other words, it pays to invest in girls’ and women’s education.

GENDER SOCIALIZATION

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Western feminist stalwarts, such as Simone de Beauvoir, were elaborating the difference between biological ‘sex’ and social gender. Anne Oakley in particular, is known for coining the term gender socialization (1979), which indicates that gender is socially constructed. According to Oakley, parents are engaged in gender socialization but society holds the largest influence in constructing gender. She identified three social mechanisms of gender socialization: manipulation, canalization, and verbalization (Oakley, 1972). Oakley noted that gender is not a fixed concept but is determined by culture through the use of verbal and nonverbal signifiers and the creation of social norms and stereotypes, which identify proper and acceptable behavior. The signifiers are then perpetuated on a macro level, reinforced by the use of the media, as well as at the micro level, through individual relationships.

The concept entered mainstream lexicon on gender relations and development dynamics, and through criticism and counter criticism, ‘gender socialization’ itself became an important signifier. As a tool to highlight discriminatory practices, laws and perceptions (including stereotypes), gender socialization is often identified as the ‘root cause’ which explains various aspects of gender identities, and what underlies many gender dynamics.

In 2007, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defined gender socialization as “[T]he process by which people learn to behave in a certain way, as dictated by societal beliefs, values, attitudes and examples. Gender socialization begins as early as when a woman becomes pregnant and people start making judgments about the value of males over females. These stereotypes are perpetuated by family members, teachers and others by having different expectations for males and females.”

There is, therefore, a clear interaction between socio-cultural values (and praxis) with gender socialization. This only partly explains why it is that in many developing societies there is a persistent prioritization of women’s ‘domestic’ roles and responsibilities over public ones. Most young girls are socialized into the ‘biological inevitability’ of their socially determined future roles as mothers. This is closely connected, in many relatively socially conservative contexts, with the need to ensure (the prerequisite of) marriage.

Most related studies maintain that women with formal education are much more likely to use reliable family planning methods, delay marriage and childbearing, and have fewer and healthier babies than women with no formal education. The World Bank estimates that one year of female schooling reduces fertility by 10 per cent, particularly where secondary schooling is undertaken.

In fact, because women with some formal education are more likely to seek medical care and be better informed about health care practices for themselves and their children, their offspring have higher survival rates and are better nourished. Not only that, but as indicated earlier, these women are less likely to undergo early pregnancy. Being better informed increases the chances of women knowing how to space their pregnancies better, how to access pre and post-natal care, including prevention of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and family planning in general. The World Bank estimates that an additional year of schooling for 1,000 women helps prevent two maternal deaths.

The World Bank, along with UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund highlight in several of their reports the intergenerational benefits of women’s education. An educated mother is more likely, it is maintained, to attempt to ensure educational opportunities for her children. Indeed, the World Bank specifically notes that “ in many countries each additional year of formal education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining in school for an additional one- third to one-half year”. 6

In short, girls’ education and the promotion of gender equality in education are critical to development, thus underlining the need to broadly address gender disparities in education.

The rhetorical question that needs to be raised here is whether the consistent elements of gender socialization in the region, and the confusing messages for both sexes, can only lead to entrenching processes of gender inequality. At the very least, it is safe to argue that gender socialization, combined with the continuing discrepancies in education opportunities and outcomes not only provide a negative feedback loop, but effectively contribute to entrenching patriarchal norms.

Political events and the endorsement of political leadership are often catalytic, if not necessary determinants, of policy change. In fact, most education reform programmes are often linked to political dynamics. To date, such reforms are typically launched through a political or legal act. In most cases, countries prioritize aspects such as forging a common heritage and understanding of citizenship, instruction in particular language(s), and other means of building capacities as well as popular support for party programmes. All developing country governments have, at one time or another, put special effort into including girls in the education system. While there is a continuous role for policy makers and governments, it is increasingly clear that the socio-cultural terrain is where the real battles need to be waged in a studied, deliberate and targeted fashion.

Influencing the way people think, believe and behave; i.e., culture is the single most complicated task of human development. And yet, in policy and advocacy circles globally, this particular challenge still remains largely considered as ‘soft’ and, at best, secondary in most considerations. What is maintained here is that within the current global geopolitical climate, particularly where an increasing number of young men—and now also young women—are reverting to extremes such as inflicting violence, and where this is often exacerbated by socialization processes which often enforce certain harmful practices (e.g., early marriage) and outdated forms of gender identity and roles, then culture needs to be a high priority.

Needed cultural shifts require several key conditions. One of these is the importance of bridging the activism around gender equality and doing so by involving both men and women. While this still remains anathema to many women’s rights activists, it is nevertheless necessary that men become more engaged in gender equality work, and that women realize that their rights are incumbent on the systematic partnership with men and on appreciating the specific needs and challenges that young boys and men themselves are struggling with.

Another critical determinant of cultural change is that it has to be from within. Those who have worked with human rights issues more broadly have had to learn the hard way that any change that appears to be induced ‘from outside’, even if responding to a dire need and with perfectly sound reason, is destined for failure in many cases. Sustainable change has to be owned and operated locally. This points to the importance of identifying the ‘cultural agents of change’ in any given society, which include both its men and women activists, religious leaders, traditional and community leaders (in some cases these categories converge), media figures, charismatic community mobilizers, and especially youth themselves, who are the most critical agents of change.

At the same time, it is a fallacy to think that there can be no linkages whatsoever between local ownership and external dynamics. International, especially multilateral, development partners have an important role to play in facilitating the bridge building between and among the cultural agents of change themselves on the one hand, and between them and their respective policymakers on the other. But in this day and age of technology and increasing speed of technology, international development actors, as well as transnational academic actors, are already facilitating the building of bridges between youth. Some of this is already happening through a plethora of fora (including social websites), and the impact remains difficult to gauge.

All this points to the fact that education in the traditional sense of school enrolment, drop-out rates, curricula development, and structural dynamics thereof are in multiple stages of transition. It remains to be seen how, and in what way, new forms of education, knowledge acquisition, and information sharing will significantly change patterns of gender socialization itself. It is too soon to definitely assess the shifting sands we are standing on. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to either overestimate the power of entrenched patriarchy, or to underestimate the capacity of women and men to significantly refashion their realities. At the same time, the changes in the culture of international development goal setting are already producing critical insights and inputs which are shaping the agenda of global, regional and national dynamics for upcoming decades.

The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of any institution, Board or staff member.

1 UNICEF and UNESCO: The World We Want— Making Education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 2013 . Available at http://www.unicef.org/education/files/ Making_education_a_Priority_in_the_Post-2015_Development_ Agenda.pdf.

3 “Making education a Priority in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: report of the Global Thematic Consultation on education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”.

4 All the figures and data herein presented from UNESCO. 2011b. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011. The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education, Paris and UNESCO . World Atlas of Gender equality in education. Paris, 2012.

5 UNESCO— http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-...

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Muslim Women and Girl’s Education, A Case Study of Hyderabad,

2006, Journal of Indian Education, Volume XXXII Number 1 May 2006, pp.80-95.

Related Papers

Dialogue Quarterly

In the backdrop of educational backwardness of Muslim community in India, and especially of Muslim girls and women, and the reasons thereof, an understanding of how Muslims perceive their location and condition in the larger socio-economic-cum educational context, cultural milieu and political environment would be worth it. A probe into Muslim community’s perception, view and prevalent practices vis-à-vis education of Muslim children, particularly of Muslim girls as a manifestation of their outlook as perceived by various scholars over a period of time, might enrich and enlighten the contemporary contests and concerns as well as the salient paradigms and problems underlying their outlook, in general, and with regard to education of girls, in particularly.

IRSHADA BASHIR

Education is the basis for creativity and foresightedness that triggers change; it helps in economic growth, quality of life and quality of human resource. Education takes us away from traditional ideas, backwardness, darkness, poverty, misery and overpopulation to enlightment, prosperity and happiness. India is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic country. People belonging to much religious faith live side by side. Muslims constitute the largest minority of the country and one of the largest Muslim communities in the world. The Muslims occupies an important position in Indian society and civilization. India has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. There is widely held belief that Muslims have remained largely unaffected by the process of economic development and social change that have been taking place in the country and their general economic condition has been deteriorating progressively. The present paper is an effort to understand t...

Fayaz Ahmad Bhat

Meenu Sharma

Education is one of the significant social indicators having bearing on the achievement and the growth of an individual as well as community. This is perceived to be highly suitable for providing employment and, thereby, improving the quality of life. The educational status of Muslim women in India is worse than that of Muslim men and women of other communities. They have the lowest work participation rate and most of them engage in the self-employment activities. The article suggests that state governments need to make special provisions, over and above the nonnal, for dr~wing and retaining Muslim girls in school till class 81h as a fundamental right, and for improving their participation in secondary and higher technical education and professional education, so that they can contribute effectively in the socio-economic development of the nation.

samsuj jaman , Nishat Mehaboob

Human Resource is the key to the success of any nation. Without women literacy and empowerment, Human Resource development of a nation cannot achieve its goals. Hence women literacy as well as empowerment is equally important. For sustainable development of the Indian economy, women empowerments are highly prioritized. According to the census of 2011, women constitute 48.2% of the total population of India. Though many women of our country are empowering themselves, but still there are some Muslim women of our country who remain backward in education and development. Muslim women always remained socially and economically backward in our country. Their low participation in education becomes a barrier in the path of achieving the goal of universal education. Even within the context of education in general, there is a wide gap between the Muslim women and the women belonging to other religions and communities. The problems of the Muslim women are much different and more complex than their counterparts belonging to other religions. Indian Muslims women are far behind in achieving the literacy status because of their poor economic conditions and patriarchy society, religious superstitions.

Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology

Shanti Bhusal

This research analyses the educational status of Muslim women aged between 16-40 years of Kundhar area that lies in ward numbers 10 12 and 13Pokhara sub metropolitan Kaski. A total of 60 Muslim women aged between 16-40 years were purposively selected as respondents. It primarily focuses on the participation of the women in education and the obstacles they face in attaining it. Marriage and religious beliefs have been found as the main factors hindering educational achievement for these women. These factors have limited the role of many respondents to being a house wife only. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjsa.v6i0.10718 Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol.6 2014: 203-210

Journal of Indian Education

This paper attempts to trace barriers that compel Muslim girls to discontinue their schooling at the secondary stage i.e. classes IX or X in four districts namely Bahraich, Bareilly, Bijnor and Rampur of Uttar Pradesh, based on case studies with Muslim girls aged 15-17 who had completed elementary education, but were withdrawn from schools and focus group discussions with Muslim community. Evidences from many research studies show non-availability of secondary level schooling facilities, especially in rural areas, school ethos, if available and household poverty in sending girls to schools are very important barriers that compel Muslim girls not to avail the benefits of educational opportunities at the secondary stage. Although all of these have strengths to influence parents to deprive their daughters from availing educational facilities, especially once girls attain puberty. But the argument here is that parental disinterest in Muslim girls' education is one of the significant barriers, especially when girls attain puberty. The paper explores the potentially serious problems that lead to parental disinterest with regard to Muslim girls' education at the secondary stage.

BEST Journals

Women’s issues have received a lot of attention in post independence period and the nation is party to all international covenants and conventions like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), CEDAW (1979), Protection of Rights of Children (1959, 1989) etc., Besides this the rights of women are guaranteed through the law of the land i.e. the Constitution through Right to Equality (Articles 14, 15, 16,), Fundamental Duties, Directive Principles of State Policy, etc., Apart from this, number of Commissions and Committees are also constituted to protect the rights of women and specially the Commission of Minorities, SC/ST etc., However, in spite of these pro active measures initiated by the state, we find that the position of women in general and minorities especially the Muslim women are in a deplorable position. The sharp disparities and inequalities present in the Indian society are not free from the influence of caste, creed, religion and gender. Gender gaps across all these layers make women and girls the most disadvantaged groups and deprived members of our society. Any discussion on the present situation of minority women would be incomplete without looking at the situation of women in general and specifically among the minorities and the disadvantaged sections of population Muslims constitute India’s largest minority as well as the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. Educationally, Muslims constitute one of the most backward communities in the country causing concern. Muslim girls and women lag behind their male counterparts and women of all other communities. Muslims in Karnataka constitute about 12.23% in Karnataka.1 Muslims and neo-Buddhists are considered as most backward in education. The 2001 census corroborates this. At the All India basis Jains have the highest literacy rate of 94.1%, followed by Christians (80.3%); Buddhists (72.7%); Sikhs (69.4%); Hindus (65.1%) and Muslims at 59.1%. The SC/ST who constitute 24.4% of the country’s population have literacy rate of 52.2%.2 In order to identify the socio-economic status of the minority community in the country, the Sachar Committee was constituted which made startling revelations on the conditions of the minorities in the country especially their social, economical and educational status and recommended for a 15 point program for their overall development. “According to an ORG-Marg Muslim Women’s Survey — commissioned by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi — conducted in 2000-2001 in 40 districts spanning 12 states, the enrolment percentage of Muslim girl children is a mere 40.66 per cent. As a consequence, the proportion of Muslim women in higher education is a mere 3.56 per cent, lower even than that of scheduled castes (4.25 per cent). On all-India basis, 66 per cent Muslim women are stated to be illiterate. The illiteracy is most widespread in Haryana while Kerala has least illiteracy among Muslim women closely followed by Tamil Nadu. Muslim women are found to be more literate than their Hindu counterparts in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Most of the northern states are in urgent need of vigorous and sustained literacy campaigns”3 Educational and economic backwardness is not confined to any one particular religion. No religion gives equal status for women and this is true in case of Muslim women also and we find that Muslim women and girls are the most affected in terms of educational attainment when compared to all other minority sections. The reasons may be extreme poverty, educationally backwardness, religious bigotism etc. This paper hence analyses these fundamental rights of Muslim women and their educational and social status in Karnataka. • Dr. Abdul Aziz, Socio-Economic Status of Muslim Women in Karnataka, 2011 • An Analytical Study of Muslim Women and Girls in India, Ministry of Women & Child Development • Educating Muslim women in India-Problems and Prospects article by Rakshanda Jalil

QUEST JOURNALS

After independence, women's education made considerable progress in India. The number of girl's schools and colleges increased. Muslim girls going to schools and colleges also increased slowly but steadily. Muslim parents are becoming anxious to educate their daughters along with their sons. Village girls are going to schools while in towns many of them are seeking higher education. Today, our country has significant number of Muslim girls and women attaining modern education as compared to the past. Still Muslim women's educational condition and impact on their lives are changing very gradually, and sometimes; the change is painfully slow, because for a long time, Muslim woman have remained secluded and have lived the life of submission, so most of them are apprehensive of the idea of change.

Dr. Mahfuz Alam

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Ugandan women still face barriers to equality in education, employment, and politics, Afrobarometer study shows

• In Uganda, women are less likely than men to have progressed to secondary school (39% vs. 49%) (Figure 1).
• Among working-age adults, men are more likely than women to be employed (50% vs. 39%) (Figure 2).
• More than one-third (36%) of citizens report that husbands or other family members “often” or “always” prevent women from taking paid employment (Figure 3).
• More than one-third (35%) of citizens say schoolgirls “often” or “always” face discrimination, harassment, and requests for sexual favours from their teachers (Figure 4).
• More than three-fourths (78%) of Ugandans say women should have the same chance as men of being elected to public office, a 12-percentage-point increase compared to 2012 (66%) but down 6 points since 2022 (84%) (Figure 5).

Despite progress toward gender equality, Ugandan women continue to face  discrimination, harassment, and barriers in various facets of life, Afrobarometer’s latest survey reveals. 

Survey findings show that Ugandan women are less likely than men to have higher  education and paying jobs. Significant minorities report that husbands and relatives  prevent women from taking employment and that sexual harassment of women and  girls in public spaces, including schools, is common. 

And while a majority of citizens support women’s equal chance at being elected to  public office, the share who espouse this view has declined since Afrobarometer’s  previous survey in 2022. 

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Morris Mthombeni and Albert Wocke

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Read the professors’ business school-style case study before considering the issues raised in the box at the end.

At the end of last year, Dan Marokane became the 12th chief executive of Eskom in the past decade alone. He returned to the embattled South African state-owned utility monopoly, which he had left in 2015, to tackle the tensions between fixing the company to ensure energy security in South Africa and meeting its “just energy transition” commitments to lower emissions.

At COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, in December 2021, the US, EU, UK, France and Germany pledged $8.5bn to help South Africa shut its coal-fired powered stations. Eskom generates more than 90 per cent of electricity used in South Africa and the Southern African Development Community region, of which 85 per cent is produced from fossil fuels.

Overall, the energy sector contributes 41 per cent of South Africa’s CO₂ emissions, according to the World Bank , earning Eskom the dubious honour of being called “the world’s worst polluting power company” by some environmental groups. Eskom also finds itself at odds with climate activists and academics such as those from University College London and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, who argue that “no more fossil fuel projects are needed as renewable energy sources take up the demand”.

In addition, since 2008, Eskom has struggled with debilitating national blackouts euphemistically known as “load shedding”. These were caused by insufficient generation to meet demand for power as a result of poor management, corruption and bad political decisions. Electricity prices spiked and the lack of power further weakened the South African economy, costing as much as £40mn per day.

The authors

Morris Mthombeni and Albert Wocke are professors at the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa; Professor Mthombeni is also dean at Gibs

During the first half of 2024, the situation appeared finally to be stabilising, following the appointment of Mteto Nyati as Eskom chairman. Nyati had a successful track record in the technology and telecommunication sectors. Marokane, as a new chief executive with a supportive board chair, is also able to draw on his prior experience at Eskom, when he was in charge of generation.

Marokane has cautioned that, while there has been no load shedding for several months, “South Africa is not out of the woods yet”. His strategy includes carrying out extensive maintenance at underperforming coal-fired power stations that had been poorly maintained, and dismissing corrupt or incompetent managers. The turnaround is complicated by a new business model and the need for Eskom to move to cleaner energy production as part of the just transition programme.

Eskom was a vertically integrated business since its inception in 1923 but, in 2019, the South African government began a process of unbundling the company into separate subsidiaries for generation, transmission and distribution. The objective was to tackle the problems that led to load shedding and improve efficiency and transparency, reduce rent seeking, and protect capital providers interests.

The first division to be spun off in July this year was transmission, now an Eskom subsidiary known as the National Transmission Company South Africa, which operates with a separate board and management team. This has the potential to be the most profitable of the subsidiaries and will run the transmission system and buy electricity from multiple generators, not only Eskom. It will eventually provide a platform for generators, consumers, retailers and traders to trade with each other, as happens in a number of other countries. But Marokane might want to push back the timing of the spin-off for two related reasons.

First, Eskom ought to protect its less profitable generation division, currently dominated by fossil-fuel energy sources. In July, Eskom spoke out against government plans to issue licences allowing private generators to sell directly to customers, and to permit the import of energy into South Africa. The company was concerned that applicants would be able to cherry-pick customers, leaving existing small users without the present cross-subsidy from larger consumers.

Second, to meet its carbon emission reduction targets, Eskom must find a way to address a continuing reliance on fossil fuels as the main source of energy in its generation division. The company had pledged at COP26 to reduce emissions from 442mn tons a year to between 350mn and 420mn tons by 2030. Retaining transmission capability within Eskom could help support a sustainable restructure, leading to a better funded just transition plan.

Marokane was confident Eskom would reduce about 71mn tons of CO₂ from generation by 2030, as it aggressively built a renewable energy portfolio. Yet it has failed to repurpose its 63-year-old 1,000MW Komati power station, east of Pretoria — it was finally decommissioned in October 2022.

Owing to the social consequences of the loss of hundreds of jobs at the fossil-fuelled Komati, which were replaced by many fewer focusing on social entrepreneurship initiatives, Marokane described it as an “ atomic bomb scenario in terms of social discord”.

Despite partnering with the South African Renewable Energy Technology Centre and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to redeploy the hundreds of people who lost jobs after the closure of Komati, Eskom has found that the path to a just energy transition is not a smooth one.

Discussion points

See the FT video above, and:

ft.com/eskom-case1

ft.com/eskon-case2

Considering the current strategy to unbundle Eskom into generation, distribution and transmission subsidiaries, how can the company make its generation business comfortably profitable?

Is the organisational restructure a crucial part of Eskom’s plan to achieve its emission reduction targets? If Eskom believed the restructure was unnecessary for it achieve its 2030 emissions reduction targets, could Marokane and his team consider retaining the current structure for the foreseeable future?

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