Notes onthe side event: Advancing gender equality in and through education
22 November 2012
Introduction by Nora Fyles, UNGEI Secretariat
Girls education is an essential vehicle to achieving MDG 3 "Promote gender equality and empower women" and EFA 5 " Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality".
1)First question: How does education contribute to gender equality?
Julia Dicum, Education Team Leader, CIDA:
We have a good sense of the answer to that question. The benefits to girls’ education to women’s empowerment and gender equality are well recognized.
- Higher earning potentials.
Indeed, the earning potentials increase with the level of education until a certain point the relation between earning potentials and grades reaches a plateau.
For most young girls and women, the earning potentials are enhanced through their degrees and the skills they acquire through education.
- Better protection against violence and sexual diseases transmission
It has been shown that being at school, even if violence is still prevalent toa certain extent, protects girls against violence that they could face otherwise.
- Awareness on how to protect themselves against sexual diseases
- Participation in the political area
Educated girls are able to read the name written on the voting ballot and therefore are able to vote and express their opinion. By doing so, they can elect someone to represent themselves in their community and the whole society. Also the fact that they are able to vote can have a positive impact on their role/status within their family.
The important question we need to ask ourselves is how communities evaluate the outcomes of education.
For instance, in Afghanistan, we experienced troubles to get teachers in community schools for girls, so we hired teenage girls that were former students of the programme. Those teenagers became extremely popular in the villages as they were earning their own income and were now seen as attractive potential wives by young men. The teenage girls were also very proud of the income they were bringing back to their family and gave them the power to be able to choose their husbands rather than having someone in their family deciding for them. It also helped to make education a more rewarding experience for young girls and their mothers as it enabled young women to make their own decisions.
Aicha Bah Diallo, Chair FAWE:
It is more than a question of income, but women who received their education are more likely to send their own children to school.
Educated women are also more confident, they share the domestic tasks more equallyamong their childrenboth boys and girls, whereas traditionally only the girls would have to do domestic chores while boys play outside. Those women who received an education are more willing to consider boys and girls as equal in the household.
2)Second question on current gaps in education:
Mioko Saito, Programme Specialist, IIEP
Measurements of gaps in gender parity according to the definition put forward by UNESCO in 2003.
- Access to primary education: that objective has been achieved by a lot of countries.
- Learning outcomes: still have to be developedbased on the evidences from theanalyses undertaken in 15 Sub-Saharan African countries on their learning achievements in math and HIV/AIDS knowledge (SAQMEC). PISA by OECD only covers high and middle income countries.
Those SACMEQ results[UNESCO1] underline the fact that efforts have been made on promoting parity but not on quality.According to the same series of study[UNESCO2], even[JS3] if there is a gender balance in the number of female teachers (50%) in the primary level, the number of female headmasters is still far below the number of male headmasters.
Furthermore there is no evidence that [JS4]female teachers tend to produce better pupils, but female teachers arealso NOTrecognized and promoted in the same manner as male teachers, even if they would have the same level of qualifications.
Gaps are persisting in in school management and students’ learning achievement.
Aicha Bah Diallo, Chair FAWE:
We need to ask ourselves why the gender gap exists.And in doing so thecritical factor to take into account is the importance of the country’s values.
What is at stake for women? Why would a young girl want to become literate when she is living in a non-literate environment?
We need to find the answer to the question why would people want to be literate when they live in communities with extremely high level of illiteracy?
On the other side, we can observe the reverse situation in communities with high literacy rate, where non-literate people may feel ashamed.
The other question we need to ask ourselves is how do we change the perceptions of policy makers on literacy for women? How can we convince ministers of the importance of literacy programmes for women?
Note that there was no mention of adult women literacy during the morning session of GEM.
Literacy is not only a problem for children only but also concerns youth, adults and women. Putting the priority on children only is not going to resolve the problem of high illiteracy rate in some countries.
Another issue that needs to be addressed concerns the sustainability of resources that have been highly unequally distributed for centuries and that will not change in the near future. The problem is not only about financial resources but also about “moral” resources (commitment) that we need to put in for eradicating illiteracy.
Saniye Gülser Corat, Director, Division for Gender Equality, UNESCO
By looking at the 2012 GMR we can see that 68 countries have not achieved the gender parity goal on primary education and in 60 of them girls are disadvantaged. So we can say that parity alone is not getting us where we want to be, parity alone does not allow us to achieve our objectives.
Mioko Saito
Development organizations such as the World Bank or USAID recommend that the question of equal access and good quality of education must be addressed together. It is important to raise awareness on both of these issues
Aicha Bah Diallo
Another problem in measuring literacy rates in Sub-Saharan countries is the criteria being used. In fact, in some villages of West Africa, women know how to read and write in Arabic or the N’Ko??[JS5][UNESCO6]However, those alphabets are not taken into account by studies as they only look at the people’s ability in French. As a consequence, a great number of women are considered as illiterate even when they know how to read and write.
Need for more qualitative data
Julia Dicum
UNESCO assessment should go beyond(the restricted understanding of literacy as 3Rs [UNESCO7]) and[JS8] ask what type of literacy we are talking about?
An E.U study published in September 2012 showed that 15 to 20% of the European population is illiterate.
Question is on how do we combine the statistics[JS9]?[UNESCO10]
The assumptions under which they are made change the final results.
How to address differences of literacy skills between male and female?
3)Third question on the agenda to achieve larger gender equality
Saniye Gülser Corat
Education is a very important part of the problem of gender inequality. But other factors are also part of the equation such as citizenship, or the importance given to gender equality within the community, society, families.
Income inequalities are rising especially in industrialized and middle income countries.
Localization and citizenship matter a lot
The key enabling factor is self-worth that people developwithin their family and community. The feeling of self-worth continues to grow in school environment and at the workplace.
Building self-esteem is a lifelong process.
Important for women when they raise their sons and daughters and helping them because self-worth is a highly influential factor.
For instance, at the college level what do we need to provide to empower girls?
Example of the Barefoot College in India founded by Mr. Bunker Roy in 1972: They select grandmothers (as young as 35 years old) from villages in Africa and bring them to India to teach how to electrify their villages. To overcome the language barrier they use sign languages. Once the women return back to their villages, their status change completely and they are now respected and treated as community leader.
The perception of the other village members on women changed after women received education; women gained importance and respect in their communities.
The partnership with UNESCO is trying to add on aneducational (learning) dimension to vocational training in opening learning centers next to the technical centers.
Education is also about teaching respect for others and nurturing relationships.
On the teachers side:
In schools in Senegal, girls and boys were treated differently, as boys were seated at the front and girls at the back. Anytime boys would give a wrong answer they would brag about it and adopt a very self-confident attitude,whereas girls would feel ashamed and apologize.
Differences in the treatment of male and female teachers are also observed widely. For example, if a male teacher makes a mistake he would be given another chance, but if a female teacher makes a mistake, she would be given no additional chance. The firing of female teachers happened more often than the one of male teacher.
4)Fourth question on skills development and transferable skills related to self-esteem
Self-esteem is one of the key elements.
See for more comments in the previous paragraph.
5)Fifth question on the recommendations for post 2015
Aicha Bah Diallo
It is critical to take ECCE, primary, secondary education all togetheras they all are important.
There should be one common goal, and not to differentiate between the three.
Saniye Gülser Corat
The goal of gender equality should not be compartmentalized.Economy, education and political participation are areas where improvements need to be made.
There is a need to find a way for a holistic approach that integrates all the socio-economic and political dimensions of gender.
If we only focus on access to education we will lose on the quality side.
Gender equality is not only an issue for developing countries, but also developed countries where wagegaps are still wide.
We need to discuss where we want to go and what we want to achieve through gender equality.
Mr. Hakeem, Regional Coordinator and Chief of APPEAL, UNESCO Bangkok
-We are facing critical bottlenecks and need to find solutions by 2015.
-Some solutions for addressing gender inequality lay outside the education system. Improving living conditions for instance, does not only depend on education. For example, we can ask ourselves how much would improvements in access to waterand electricity helpeasing women’s workload, or their decision-making hence freeing time for studies?
-Usually, literacy comes after other skills; for example, in Afghanistan, there are programmes for empowering women through tailoring or cooking. As a result, the ratios of non-literate female remained high.
-Countries that signed up to the EFA goals in Jomtien in 1990, have not followed through on their commitments well enough.
Julia Dicum
-MDGS tried to put all sectors together, tried to figure out the best way to transform something complicated into a mainstreaming issue.
PatrickQuinn, ILO
-ILO recognizes progress made by some countries. However, too many girls still have limited access to education.
-Next barrier: women’s access to descent work and employment
How girls are learning what skills they need? And how easy is it to get a job?
There is currently a study going onon work-transition initiative taking place in 15 countries … (what[JS11]?) [UNESCO12]
How the girls are moving from school environment to the work market?
Nora Fyles
-It is also important to take into account the gender power-relations alongside the school-to-work transition.
Florence Malinga, Commonwealth Secretariat
-Most countries try to develop girls’ access to education. We can see that girls are pushed towards more domestic professions (e.g. hairdressing, bakery programmes are common).
-Wealso observe that very often employers prefer to take boys even if girls perform very well.
Carolyn Medel-Anonuevo, deputy Director, UNESCO UIL
-With regards the post-2015 Agenda, we need to ask ourselves what kind of education is needed for young girls and boys
-On the policy-making side, we need to make sure that young marginalized population develop capacity-building competencies.
Saniye Gülser Corat
-The woman population constitutes 52 to 53% of the worldwide population.
-When talking about gender inequalities we need to ask ourselves the following question: to what end do women need education?
Aicha Bah Diallo
-Some changes from 2000, consultation does not only rely on top-down exchanges but also must take into account bottom-up experiences.
-We need to emphasize the importance of a human rights approach, together with the principle of inclusion and guarantee of access to funds in the post-2015 discussions.
-At the country level, ILO and UNESCO are working together.
UNESCOTVET
ILOprofessional education
Carol
-Young people make up a large part of the marginalized population.
Noro Andriamiseza, ED/ASD/DHR
-The respect for diversity needs to be in national constitutions.
-Importance of the UN Declaration on the Right of Indigenous people
challenge of implementation
Maki Hayashikawa, Chief, Section for Basic Education ED/BNL/BAS
-Advocacy report From Access to Equality was officially announced by the DG at the official opening of the High Level Meeting of GEM on 21 November 2012
-The purpose of the advocacy repot was to keep gender equality on the highest level of the political agenda, and to provide a platform for further advocacy under the framework of the UNESCO Global Partnership for Girls’ and Women’sEducation launched in May 2011.
-The report focusses on secondary education and literacy, the two areas of education which have been most neglected, despite the fact that gender gap are most critical in these two subsectors of education.
-The report highlights a number of good practices in secondary education and literacy and demonstrating the inter-linkages between the two and for the need to promote a holistic approach to girls’ and women’s education for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Aicha Bah Diallo
-Post conflict policies need to bring technical vocational education to girls rather than general academic education.
-Important to take into account to role of women in industries as well.
Concluding remarks from MarilenaViviani, UNICEF
Gender equality is a huge challenge for women and young girls.
The central points of consensus on what we need to do:
- to go beyond education,
- to take into account the economic potential linked to empowerment of women
The problem is not about either parity or quality but both matter and are needed.
We need to fight against exclusion and discrimination.
Taking the example of UNICEF: during the 1990’s everything was going well but in the 2000’s we realized that there was a problem even within the UNICEF’s staff. So in 2008 we adopted a new strategy, and it turned out that it lead to one of the hardest discussion the administration had to go through.
They implemented the GEM: Gender Equality Market.[UNESCO13]
Call for more access, equality in education and more learning assessment.
goals and ways
As the 2015- target date approaches, we need to ensure that our efforts aresustainable, so that it will contribute in the long term to building a strong human capital.
New area of effort should be on the WORK OF WOMEN.
Recommendations:
- Need to take a life-cycle approach to girls’ and women’s education
- Need to prevent compartmentalizing gender equality issues
- Need to reinforce EFA
- Need for strong political support and commitment
- Need to have increased focus onaccess for women to the labour marketand the links to education and training for girls and women.
1
[UNESCO1]Do you remember what “results” this is referring to? PISA or SAQMEC results? Or the efforts by member states in general?
[UNESCO2]SAQMEC in Africa?
[JS3]I am really sorry but I don’t remember what study she was referring to. I cannot find any reference to SACMEQ in my notes but I remember she said the result on teachers comes from the same series of study. When I look at the SACMEQ website there is a study on gender equity in school managerial positions published in 2010 so we can guess that she probably was talking about the SACMEQ.
[JS4]On that point I am probably mistaken but I thought the study found out that female teachers are producing better pupils?
[JS5]I am not to sure that she was referring to that alphabet used in western Africa
[UNESCO6]Better check with Aicha herself. I will do that.
[UNESCO7]Need to check again, but was this your recollection?
[JS8]I am sorry but I did not have time to write down exactly what she was referring to. I don’t remember if it was the 3Rs or the levels of literacy; knowing how to read and write more or less fluently.
[JS9]If I remember correctly, she was talking about comparison of data and combination of the results to have clearer understanding
[UNESCO10]Do you have more notes on this? This is not very clear.
[JS11]If I remember well he said that there is an ongoing study on the transition from school to work, but I do not remember which countries are involved or if the study is being conducted by ILO only.
[UNESCO12]Do you have more information on this as it seems incomplete.
[UNESCO13]Not sure if we wish to keep this. But I am keeping this for now, and ask Nora to check and decide.