Education

 

 

The Statistic table State of the World’s children (2008) shows clearly few facts. It is obvious that Central Asia has high differences in gender equality concerning girls’ education. In Sub Saharan Africa gender equality is not good either but better than in South Asia, like in Kenya there is hardly any difference between boys and girls’ attendance in primary school. According to these indicators there is a huge difference between primary schooling and secondary school attendance ratio in Africa and in Asia. According to videos that we had as a learning material, girls’ education, especially secondary school education is vital in reducing mortality, producing better health and capacity to earn money and social status can be influenced by their further education(video;Unicef at Oxford).

Children in primary school age have higher attendance in education than secondary school aged children, and this is common to every country listed in this chart. So it seems to be quite common that small children may attend school for few years yet further education and occupational training can be just a dream for people in Sub Saharan Africa and in Central Asia, and this is especially concerning girls again.

It is quite interesting that former communist countries still have very high attendance in education and have high literacy rate. This has continued even some of these countries count as developing countries, like Mongolia and Uzbekistan. These countries may have a high literacy rate, yet access to internets and phones is fairly poor. Could we expect as a conclusion, that education is respected but countries’ social economical status is still quite low, which means that gap between poor and rich is usually very obvious and deep.

There is huge gap between least developed countries and western industrialised countries what comes to education in all level, and same difference in access to phones and internets. In least developed countries often one out of five or less has had secondary schooling. Interestingly only ten out these 200 countries in the chart had higher female primary school attendance than males. But percentage is only marginally higher. It is clear that difference an opposite way in percentages is bigger. For example in Namibia literate youth’s percentage of the total population for male is 91% and for female 94%. Difference between male and female is three percentages. The other example shows more common situation, like in Nepal 81 % of 15-24 years old male are literate but only 71% of female.

 

What can explain differences concerning educational disparities between countries?

One is gender based violence. It is too often that girls do not have same possibilities for the education due to many factors. Some are religion and cultural based factors. Like we see in a chart that is girls’ attendance in schools very low in South Asia. One reason has to do with these countries’ attitude and religion what comes to women’s right and status in society. Some countries have clear discrimination of women’s right and social injustice can be apparent. Interestingly in Namibia girls are attending more in secondary school education, and we can suppose that over one hundred years missionary work in that country has influenced positively in gender equality. Most of the development work missionaries did was education in the first years they started work in Namibia.

 

It is obvious that girls do not have same access to schools, and there are several reasons to this. Few main reasons are poverty, cultural practices, and quality of teaching and long distances to schools. One emerging challenge is HIV/AIDS causing orphan hood. (The World Bank 2008).

   Many countries lack teachers and trained personnel. Especially rural areas have difficulties to get trained teachers. Some governments do not give support and value teachers’ work, and therefore it is very hard to get people to work in these challenging areas. Many countries infrastructure can be so low, that they do not simply have any schools, not only lacking teachers, but also books and facilities overall.

   Often war and other natural emergencies cause huge difficulties for the countries to rebuild social and educational systems again. It might take years before schools are working fully again. In these situation priorities are somewhere else than in education, sadly to say, ‘cause it only will worsen these countries’ development.  If there is not educated people to work and rebuild the country situation might worsen or at least take much longer.

   Poverty itself is one reason causing low educational level. Poor people do not have possibilities to pay school fees. Poverty can require that even children have to work for the families, they are necessary work power. Especially in situations where some family members are struck with sickness it can cause that children need to stay home. If children are working for their family they might get a daily income or bread to the table, and therefore many poor people cannot see education as an investment for tomorrow (UNICEF 2008).

   It is fact that some ethnic minorities have worse access to schooling than majority of the population.

High literacy rate indicates better gender equality and better democracy in decision making. Due to this fact it is obvious that education can change attitudes and thinking of population.

There is a fact that if mothers themselves have education they are more likely motivating their children to get education as well. The importance of secondary schooling is not seen important enough. It could have so many positive impacts, like better employment, new skills and lower fertility just to mention few. If literacy rates are low, it might be in countries where gender equality is poor, and this pattern that women stay home is continuing from generation to generation. No access to information and lack of insight why it is important to get education, can be one reason to explain differences between countries. It is hard to change attitudes. Many poor hope for the better future for their children. By seeing some great examples what difference education makes, they can be motivated to send their children to school.

 

Used articles

UNICEF 2008 Education for all (http://www.unicef.org/education/index_44870.html)

The World Bank 2008, Education and development

UNICEF 2008, Basic education and gender equality