id21 highlights 4 girls' education communicating international development research

Animatrices are local women, most of Looking to the future, Oxfam suggests it is Improving whom have completed six years of primary important to: education. They work with parents, telling l continue working with teachers, parents, gender equality in them about the importance and value of and policymakers to provide more schools schooling for both girls and boys. They and curricula that are safe and relevant education in monitor girls’ attendance and work with for girls teachers to ensure a safe and friendly l encourage animatrices to challenge lthough Mali has made impressive school environment. When girls drop out pastoral male-dominated relations and Aprogress in getting more children of school, the animatrices talk with families those of wider Malian society into school, the gender gap is still wide. to find out the reasons why and try to l tackle gender inequalities inside and In pastoral communities in northern encourage the girls to return. outside the school and at both local and Mali less than a third of girls attend The programme has used a rights-based national levels school. Local women are helping to approach which has begun to transform l learn more about why parents send girls raise girls’ enrolments, but schools are beliefs about schooling for girls. However, to school in order to encourage more failing to challenge assumptions about the animatrice model has shortcomings: enrolments roles for women and girls. l The women often have to put up with l ensure that gender issues are introduced Oxfam GB reports on the work of hostility from male school directors. into national legal frameworks and ‘animatrices’ – female community helpers l Animatrices have had limited training in reflected in decentralisation and education – working against the discrimination that gender issues and some hold attitudes reforms. girls experience in the region of north- which reinforce gender inequalities. east Mali. In this remote area of semi-desert l Their promotion of classrooms that are Salina Cheserem-Sanou many communities move regularly in search friendly for girls can lead to increased CARE International in Somalia/South Sudan, P.O Box 2039 KNH 00202, Nairobi, Kenya of pasture in a region plagued by droughts work loads for the girls: cleaning, T +254 20 2807143 F +254 20 2718406 and locusts. fetching water, and washing dishes [email protected] Oxfam has tried to work towards reinforce stereotypes of women’s work. achieving gender equality and quality l Targeting only women and girls with ‘Pastoralist Schools in Mali: Gendered Roles and Curriculum Realities’, by Salina Sanou and Sheila Aikman, education by developing a flexible approach messages about hygiene and sanitation Chapter Nine, pp181-195, Beyond Access: Transforming that aims to increase the number of girls sends the wrong signal to men and boys. Policy and Practice for Gender Equality in Education, who go to school and stay in school. It also l Animatrices are not sufficiently Oxfam GB, edited by Sheila Aikman and Elaine ensures that they acquire relevant and long- addressing questions about the quality Unterhalter, 2005 www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/resources/ term basic skills in mathematics, , or relevance of the education that girls downloads/BA_11.pdf health and nutrition. are receiving.

social costs: the education of girls l It appears that maternal education Lower school contributes to reduced population growth increases spending on girls’ education, and improves child health and general whereas paternal education does not, enrolment for household investments in children. while the reverse is true for boys aged 13 Compared to other Asian countries, to 15 years. Chinese girls the gender gap in education in China is The study also suggests there is evidence moderate and a relatively high number that the opportunity costs for schooling lthough the Chinese government is of women are employed. Yet despite the young women are considered greater Acommitted in principle to equality government’s commitment to gender than that for young men. Male education between the sexes, more boys attend equality, in reality women and girls hold a is associated with significantly higher school in rural China than girls. School lower status in society than men, especially household income. In contrast, there is no enrolment in China is far higher than in in peasant households. apparent return from female education. economically similar countries, in part The research made the following findings: If the gender gap in school enrolment because the first nine years of schooling l As the first nine years of schooling in is partly due to household economic are compulsory. Why, then, are fewer China are compulsory, it is only after considerations, then the government could girls enrolled in school? the age of 14 that the high enrolment address this gender inequality effectively by This study by the of Nottingham rates begin to drop and the gender gap subsidising female education. For instance, and the University of Oxford explores gender becomes evident. schooling could be free for girls or they inequalities in education in rural China. l Discrimination in spending on education could be given bursaries. It looks at the different impacts of socio- for girls also becomes evident from the economic factors such as household income age of 14. Lina Song School of Sociology & Social Policy, Law and Social on girls’ and boys’ schooling. In particular, l The gender gap in school enrolment is Sciences Building, University of Nottingham, University it focuses on how the education of parents larger among poorer households. Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK affects the gender gap in school enrolments l Household income has little effect on T +44 (0)115 846 6217 F +44 (0)115 951 5232 and whether it has a stronger effect on the school enrolment except for a negative [email protected] www.nottingham.ac.uk schooling of girls. effect for girls aged 15 to 18 years. As female labour contributes significantly l Maternal education and higher ‘Why Do Girls in Rural China Have Lower School to developing economies, low female proportions of women in the household Enrolment?’ World Development Vol 34 (9), pages 1639- education is considered an obstacle to are related to higher school enrolment 1653, by Lina Song, Simon Appleton and John Knight, economic growth. It also has important and household spending on education. 2006 www.id21.org M a r c h 2 0 0 7 id21 education highlights 4 girls' education

secondary education makes to women’s cope with peer pressure and negative Educating girls as vulnerability to HIV. stereotyping. The research found that: l The education system’s response to HIV a ‘social vaccine’ l Prior to 1995, educated women were must be prioritised, with all schools more vulnerable to HIV infection, probably giving sexual focusing against HIV as they had better economic prospects, on HIV and promoting the use of influencing their mobility and number of condoms. he global AIDS epidemic is sexual partners. l Schools must promote gender equality Tincreasingly affecting women. In sub- l After 1995, highly educated girls and and challenge negative gender Saharan , which has been hit the women were more likely to negotiate stereotyping. Sexual violence and sexual hardest by the disease, 57 percent of safer sex, thereby reducing their HIV relations between teachers and girls must those infected are women. Research has infection risk. not be tolerated. shown that in the early stages of the l Girls who had completed secondary l Primary school fees must be abolished epidemic, highly educated women were school had a lower risk of HIV infection so that more girls can get an education. more vulnerable to HIV infection than and practiced safer sex than those who However, quality of education must not the less educated. Is this still the case? had completed primary school only. suffer. HIV campaigns often fail to address l More educated adults had a positive the increased vulnerability of girls and influence on young women’s use of Tania Boler condoms, while more education also ActionAid International, Hamlyn House, MacDonald women to infection as they do not take Road, London N19 5PG, UK into account their relative lack of power empowered boys and men to practice T +44 (0)20 7561 7561 F +44 (0)20 7436 5389 to decide who they have sex with, when safer sex, reducing HIV infection. [email protected] and how. One of the best methods for l However, many children, especially girls, www.actionaid.org empowering girls and women to make were excluded from education as most James Hargreaves these choices is to ensure they receive an children in Africa had to pay primary London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, education. However, research into whether school fees. Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK education helps to empower girls and The education of girls and women would T +44 (0)20 7927 2955 F +44 (0)20 7436 5389 [email protected] women to reduce HIV infection among be a large step towards turning around www.lshtm.ac.uk them has had mixed results. the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. The study A study by ActionAid reviews all the made a number of policy recommendations, Girl Power: the Impact of Girls’ Education on HIV and including: Sexual Behaviour, ActionAid International, by James evidence to date from research published Hargreaves and Tania Boler, 2006 between 1990 and 2006 on the impact of l HIV prevention campaigns must tackle www.actionaid.org/wps/content/documents/GIRL_ girls’ education on sexual behaviour and gender and power dynamics in sexual POWER_ENGLISH_FINAL_792006_152655.pdf HIV. It asks what difference primary and relationships to help girls and boys

Modernising Interviews with schoolgirls and l there is no clear division between observations of classes show: traditional ‘backwardness’ and women’s roles l the strength of cultural expectations of ‘modernity’ female ‘shyness’ l getting married can be a rational choice in Eritrea l widespread realisation that it will take when weighing the options for the future generations before young women as it allows exemption from compulsory ritrea was born from a revolutionary can find economic security through military service and escape from a future Estruggle in which women played employment: it may therefore make of poorly-paid civil service employment a prominent part. For Eritrea’s more sense to seek a wealthy husband, l Eritrea has much to do to put theory into leaders education is a weapon to fight preferably one with prospects of living practice: there has been little progress ‘backwardness’ and promote abroad in increasing the number of female ‘modernity’, a key element of which is l few older schoolgirls ever raise their secondary students, secondary teachers gender equality. However, the ambitions hands in response to teachers’ questions and university students. of Eritrean secondary schoolgirls remain and their voices are rarely heard in group shaped by the state’s expectations and participation Tanja R. Müller l male students treat female classmates as Institute for Development Policy and Management by tradition. (IDPM), University of Manchester, Room Number: 8.32. An article from the University of less able academically Harold Hankins Building, Precinct Centre, Booth Street Manchester looks at the personal l few schoolgirls protest, accepting West, Manchester, M13 9QH, UK experiences of young women in Eritrean stereotyping as inevitable T +44 (0) 161 2750413 F +44 (0) 161 2738829 l most girls dream of going to university, [email protected] secondary schools. www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm During the 30-year liberation struggle however unrealistic these hopes may be. the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front Ambitions often lead to frustrations among ‘Education for Social Change: Girls’ Secondary Schooling (EPLF) provided education for girls and young women in a political environment in Eritrea’, Development and Change 37(2), pages 353– women for the first time in historically where the personal is expected to take 373, by Tanja R. Müller, 2006 disadvantaged areas. The EPLF developed second place behind a new curriculum and created a group the national interest. id21 of skilled women to act as role models To have ambition does Institute of Development Studies both inside the movement and within not necessarily mean University of Sussex the general population. Now in power, seeking a life beyond Brighton, BN1 9RE UK the EPLF is trying to maintain the gender the traditional: it could T +44 (0) 1273 678787 equality which existed within the liberation equally well encompass F +44 (0) 1273 877335 movement and transport it into wider striving for an arranged E [email protected] Eritrean society via education. marriage to a wealthy ISSN1746-8698 Most teachers outwardly express support husband, raising children id21 education highlights bring the latest research to for the need to engage girls to build up and living comfortably education policymakers and practitioners with limited internet access. Please photocopy and distribute them to their confidence. However, the majority of – but there seems little your colleagues. If you would like to subscribe free of charge, teachers at secondary level are male and room for such ambitions please send your contact details to the address above. id21 is share the perception that older girls will within the Eritrean hosted by the Institute of Development Studies and supported not have a future in education and are revolution. by the UK Department for International Development. primarily interested in marriage. So, they Education authorities Keywords: Girls, HIV, gender roles, empowerment, enrolment, access, attendance, ask themselves, why bother to help them? need to realise that: safety, skills, gender equality, employment, education, participation www.id21.org M a r c h 2 0 0 7