Basic education and gender equality
Regional perspectives
East Asia and the Pacific
Advocacy is the main strategy used by UNICEF to expand access to education in the region. In China, East Timor, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Philippines and Vanuatu, radio, television, drama and print media are being used to encourage disadvantaged groups to enter school. Other countries, such as Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam, are using incentives to interest such groups in continuing their education beyond the primary grades. In Cambodia, East Timor, Lao PDR and Mongolia, the provision of new water and sanitation facilities in schools are helping to boost enrolment.
UNICEF is also increasing its support to improve the quality of teaching and learning practices. Countries including China, Philippines, Mongolia, Thailand and Vanuatu are using the Child-Friendly School approach to improve the quality of instruction. Other countries are focusing on training teachers destined for remote areas. This includes training in teaching multiple grade levels (Viet Nam, Mongolia, Lao PDR) and the use of School-In-A Box supplies for especially hard-to-reach areas (Papua New Guinea).
Little has been done as yet to assess the progress in learning achievement as a result of educational investments, though plans are in the works in Lao PDR and Mongolia.
East and Southern Africa
Although access to education varies widely among the countries of eastern and southern Africa, the region as a whole is characterized by stagnating enrolment ratios, high repetition rates and a relatively poor quality of teaching and learning processes.
Drought and other emergencies have exacerbated the situation. In Zambia, for example, attendance rates for both boys and girls dropped from about 70 per cent to below 15 per cent among drought-stricken households. Many girls in Zambia were married off at a young age in families struggling to feed themselves. In Zimbabwe, hunger is forcing more girls than boys to drop out of school.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on education in the region has been also been alarming. Teachers and school administrators appear to be a high-risk group, and that is reflected in the increasing number of teacher deaths in several countries in the region. Teachers who are living with HIV/AIDS insist on being posted to urban areas with hospitals, putting students in rural areas at further disadvantage.
Children with infected parents are withdrawing from school in large numbers to head up households or care for the sick. Many parents, already troubled by the safety and security of their daughters, are keeping them out of school for fear of exposure to HIV/AIDS.
In response, UNICEF is working through a multisectoral approach to fight the disease. Preventing HIV/AIDS through education is a key area of work, as is building up the organization’s research capacity in the area of gender, sexuality and HIV/AIDS in education.
Collecting data divided by gender (gender disaggregated), a prerequisite for gender-based policy, has been an integral part of UNICEF’s education efforts in Lesotho, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan. In Rwanda, in particular, the sharing of such data and qualitative information on the situation of girls’ education has aroused the interest of key policymakers, who are rethinking their positions.
The Girls' Education Movement (GEM), a grassroots effort to empower girls, is also being promoted by UNICEF and its partners in Angola, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The movement continues to expand to additional provinces in South Africa, which UNICEF is supporting through the creation of advocacy materials and capacity development for young female activists. The programme in South Africa is proving so innovative that it is providing direction and inputs for other UNICEF-supported initiatives, including presentations and advocacy on girls’ education targeted to government officials in other countries.
In Uganda, an action plan for girls’ education was prepared and is being taken up in selected schools by local chapters and clubs formed around the Girls’ Education Movement. In two districts in the Tanzania, the girl leaders of local chapters used mapping techniques to identify out-of-school children by name and location, and presented them to the heads of schools, local councils and the School Management Committee for action.
Work is continuing to create a safe and friendly environment in schools once children do enrol. In a number of countries in the region, national standards to promote to promote child-friendly and gender-sensitive schools are in place (in Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) or under development (Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Eritrea, Lesotho, Sudan and Tanzania). In addition to national standards, teachers are also being trained in creating child-friendly and gender-sensitive environments in schools (Botswana, Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.)
Middle East and North Africa
National action plans on “Education for All” have been drafted in nine countries in the region, including Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Yemen and Tunisia. Girls' education is an integral part of these plans, however, data deficiencies persist and analysis is often inadequate for quality planning. Where data has been reported, trends show a decline in boys' enrolment, a narrowing of the gender gap in enrolment and an increase in post-primary school enrolment, especially among girls.
Meeting the goal of gender parity in enrolment in this region by 2005 will require more than quantitative increases in participation rates. Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia, in fact, are leading in a push for reform measures providing equal opportunities for all children, largely by reducing the cost of education in public schools. Syria has extended compulsory education by three years, up to age 15.
A girls' education initiative, launched by the British Broadcasting Corporation, is the sixth in a series of radio programmes on women and children in the Arab world. It is being broadcast in eight countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). Attempts to better integrate gender in programmes of high enrolment countries are likely to start with a gender review.
South Asia
School access for girls and boys has improved significantly throughout the region. In Afghanistan, for instance, some 3 million children returned to school after a gap of nearly 10 years through the “Back to School” campaign. Nearly a third were girls.
In Bangladesh, the Intensive District Education for All (IDEAL), an initiative for parent and community school management, now covers 9.9 million children. Additionally the Basic Education for Hard-to-Reach Urban Working Children Project has enabled 14,000 children with disabilities to complete a two-year, non-formal education course. Half those children are girls.
While school enrolment in the region has increased, only Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka have achieved gender parity at the primary level. Efforts to improve enrolment, especially for girls, continue region-wide.
In the wake of peace efforts, Sri Lanka’s National Institute of Education, with support from UNICEF, has taken on a rapid needs assessment of the education system in the eight districts in the war affected North-East Province and four bordering districts. Plans of action for community involvement in these districts have been drawn up. In Bhutan and Nepal, efforts have been made to provide needed educational supplies to primary children.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan have spearheaded advocacy campaigns for girls' education. Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal have undertaken gender reviews, education policy reviews for gender sensitivity and concentrated campaigns for girls’ education.
In terms of quality, half the countries in the region –Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – have identified the improvement in the quality of teaching and learning as an objective. Maldives, with 98 per cent of girls and boys completing primary school, topped the list. It placed quality of education as its highest priority.
The government of Pakistan has chosen 2,000 schools to transform into Child-Friendly Schools and has trained the teachers of these schools in child-friendly school methodologies. In Sri Lanka, the government is in the middle of national primary education reform designed to improve the quality of learning achievement. UNICEF has selected 124 schools to be developed into Child-Friendly Schools. In Nepal, the majority of the Out of School Project classes use child-centred teaching methodologies.
New teachers have been trained in Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives. India and Nepal support local level resource centres to strengthen teachers’ use of technology. And in Bhutan and Nepal teachers are encouraged to participate in distance learning through the Radio Instruction Programme.
All countries in the region continue to rely on traditional teacher-centred classrooms and promote rote learning. As a result, the overwhelming majority of children in the region who complete their primary cycle are unable to read, write or tackle simple mathematical problems in real life situations.
The greatest achievement throughout the region is community involvement in school planning and management. This has been especially true in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
The greatest constraints in the region are:
- Lack of effective planning;
- Inadequate supervision and monitoring of yearly targets for enrolment and retention;
- Lack of support systems;
- Absence of comprehensive plans to improve learning in primary schools;
- Failure to recruit teachers and other staff for vacant posts;
- Shortage of trainers, inadequate staff and poor logistic support;
- Lack of physical facilities; and
- Continued low levels of government spending on the social sector.
