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| EFA 2000 Assessment > Thematic Studies > | |
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Ten years ago in the drive to promote Education
for All, the world committed to focusing on girls, the largest
population excluded from receiving a basic education. The
level of awareness of girls' education has grown significantly,
due partially to advocacy on the part of communities through
to international agencies. Over the decade, there have been
great improvements in some areas and, unfortunately, reversals
in others. Many things have been tried, and much is known
about what works and what does not in educating girls. New
challenges have emerged over the decade. We know that all
children have the right to acquire a quality basic education,
and realistic plans and targets can be put in place for this.
During the first decade of the new millennium, stakeholders
at all levels (from government policy makers to local school
committees, to teachers, to communities, to families, and
girls themselves) need to mobilize resources and get all girls
in school and make it possible for them to complete a basic
education. It can be done. It must be done.
This Thematic Study sets out to describe what has been
accomplished since the historic World Conference on Education
for All held in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, outlines the major
trends, presents the major lessons learned, identifies emerging
issues, and proposes priorities for the next ten to 15 years.
Progress
Since
1990, there has been general acceptance of the critical importance
of education to human development, and of the key role played
by girls' education within this. From a human rights perspective,
girls' education must remain a priority as girls still constitute
almost two thirds of the children excluded from a basic education.
This acceptance has led to commitments in a number of countries
around the world, and to substantial progress in identifying
obstacles to girls' education and in understanding how to overcome
these obstacles.
Over
the decade, several countries in the Middle East region have
demonstrated that getting girls into school is quite possible,
and data from other regions show some encouraging gains. The
largest number of girls not realizing their right to a basic
education remain in South Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa still presents
the greatest challenge-both in terms of the size of the gender
gap and because population growth rates remain high and so
further challenge sufficient availability of school places.
At the same time, Sub-Saharan Africa has also demonstrated
its willingness to try new initiatives and innovations specifically
directed at attracting girls to school and keeping them there.
Worldwide, discrimination on the basis of gender remains a
problem, and the focus on girls' education from a gender perspective
has raised important questions about the education of boys
as well.
There
have also been some disappointments in the struggle for gender
equality in education since Jomtien. In some cases investments
in girls' education have, unfortunately, increased, rather than
decreased the gender gap. In other cases, consistent gains have
been halted, or even reversed, due to negative conditions in
the environment external to the education system. Data gaps
make it difficult to accurately assess what is happening to
girls in the difficult economic circumstances in parts of Eastern
and Central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Similarly, data are hard to find on the extent of the impact
of conflict and external stress on the education of girls in
approximately 50 affected countries.
Lessons learned
Most
important are the lessons that the decade has given the world,
because it is thoughtful and careful application of these lessons
on a situation by situation basis that will enable acceleration
of girls' education so that the target of Education for All
can be met within 15 years. There is a great number of lessons,
but they are presented in six general categories for the purpose
of summarization. Girls' education is more than an educational
issue. It is deeply influenced by such things as poverty, tradition,
habit, legal systems, and discrimination-all requiring political
will, not just to educate girls, but also to eliminate those
non-education obstacles.
The
evidence is clear; strong and committed leadership at every
level is essential to put in place the changes that are
required to make girls' education a possibility and to maintain
the momentum to make it a reality. To be effective, leaders
must have sufficient evidence that the change they are supporting
is in the overall best interest of those they are serving. Thus,
it becomes important to have supportive fora for sharing
information and for advocacy. These latter two lessons require
up-to-date and practical information that is derived from an
ongoing and serious research base that also supports
the refinement of existing education data bases.
These first four categories of lessons are, perhaps,
somewhat self-evident. The other two essential areas are less
obvious. It is clear that for sustainability and to address
issues of quality, equivalence, and demand, it is essential
to take a systemic approach to reforms so that girls
are no longer excluded. Finally, the only way that all these
areas have been adequately pulled together in a coherent way
that facilitates the kinds of change that are required to
get all girls into a basic education of good quality is through
extended and expanded partnerships. It is these new
and creative partnerships that have brought the necessary
dynamism into education systems, defined broadly, and enabled
them to expand and reach out to include girls.
Within each of these categories there is a wide range
of strategies and approaches that have been tried. They are
not all equally effective and it is clear that some are more
applicable to some contexts than others. There have also been
some difficult lessons to learn-for example, discovery that
some of the approaches that were believed to be simple and easily
adapted to a wide range of environments are, in fact, quite
limited.
New challenges
Since the Jomtien conference much has changed and,
as a result, new questions and issues have emerged. The Thematic
Study selects some of these and shows how they create new and
nuanced challenges in the new millennium. Certainly the focus
on girls' education from a gender perspective has raised many
important issues about boys' education, and it is fully recognized
that a gender-sensitive education is one of the things
that will make the vision of Education for All a reality. Similarly,
the evolution over the decade in girls' education and, in particular,
attempts to better understand the gender gap have resulted in
a much better understanding of exclusion-from school,
but also in the classroom, even for many who are already in
school but excluded from effective learning. This work, often
pioneered by a focus on girls, can make it possible to adapt
what is known to include other excluded and marginalised groups.
One of these groups, among many, that is a challenge consists
of adolescents.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic presents unexpected challenges
of enormous proportions. Girls are disproportionally negatively
affected, whether they are infected or not. Immediate and concerted
effort is essential or the hard won gains in girls' education
of more than a decade will be eliminated in a few years.
It
is very apparent from the work in girls' education that access
to and quality of education are inextricably linked-it would
be easier if this were not the case. This bears on very closely
to two other critical aspects of girls' (and boys') education:
the need to understand both demand and supply and how these
play out, one against the other. Everybody agrees that quality
is important, but the experience of and challenge arising
from girls' education is that the very notion of quality
must change in some very fundamental ways. A quality education
includes learning the basics and learning how to learn in
a safe, secure, gender-sensitive, healthy, and protective
learning environment. This finding presents an enormous challenge
to systems that often find it difficult to offer basic education
meeting the conventional definition of quality.
New research on globalisation is showing the
enormous potential of the processes that accompany it to increase
disparity. This is particularly alarming as women are already
the bulk of the poor and globalisation could exacerbate the
situation. In the face of this challenge and to break the cycle
of women's poverty, girls' education has to take on a new urgency.
On the other hand, the promise of the possibility of new information
and communication technologies being brought to bear to
close the growing digital divide could make an enormous difference
in alleviating unfair disparities. A challenge for girls' education
is deeply embedded in this possibility, however. There is a
growing body of evidence that girls and women are less likely
to benefit from these new technologies than their male counterparts.
A challenge that is not discussed much, but is emerging,
is a worldwide growing push from forces in support of religious
fundamentalism. Often this results in a decrease in,
rather than increase in, the rights and empowerment of girls
and women. The links of fundamentalism to patriarchy and their
implications for educational change deserve more attention if
girls' education is to move ahead at an accelerated pace.
Understanding of these challenges and monitoring how they are
affecting girls' education require more robust data that extend
beyond the conventional education statistics. It also demands
disaggregated data so that the nature of challenges can
be properly understood.
Priorities
It is not possible to address all issues simultaneously.
Priorities have to be set-some can be set globally, but good
analysis at local and national levels is critical to determine
how best to overcome the barriers to girls' education in a timely
manner. Simple access to any kind of basic education
remains a major issue for millions of children, the majority
girls.
Careful and strategic application of lessons learned
to close the gender gap and address educational quality
are essential if all are to receive a quality basic education.
There is no single intervention that will work everywhere-each
context will have to adapt what is known to the particular and
nuanced circumstances that are working against girls' education.
Linked to this is the fact that efforts in support of girls'
education must move from what are primarily limited efforts
to go to massive scale. This will present enormous challenges
around the world, but without such an effort the majority of
excluded girls will remain on the outside looking in for the
foreseeable future.
To make this extra effort, to accelerate progress,
will require ingenuity, persistence, ongoing fostering
of new partnerships, and significant resource mobilisation
and utilisation. There are probably fewer "lessons learned"
in girls' education with regard to resource mobilisation than
any of the other areas selected for discussion. Yet this topic
may present one of the greatest remaining challenges. It is
hard to reach girls (poor, with disabilities, affected by conflict
or HIV/AIDS, engaged in child labor, for example) who must be
included, and it is likely to take more resources per child
to reach them than it took the reach those who are already in
school.
To reach Education for All girls must be included-without
this the world will have failed to deliver on the promise of
a basic education for all. Girls can be included. It is possible.
It must be achieved.
Mary Joy Pigozzi 5 March, 2000
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