November 11, 2004 -- Discrimination against girls in the classroom in the developing world is threatening to undermine all efforts for gender equity in education. That’s the view of Mercy Tembon, the World Bank’s focal point for girls’ education in the Human Development Network. Tembon says an inherent bias against girls in the classroom has serious consequences.  “The reality today is that the majority of children who repeat and are dropping out of school are girls,” Tembon says. “Too few girls attend secondary school and even fewer go beyond. So in that sense, if you trace the route of women, or rather women compared to men, you see that women are shortchanged. This limits their ability to reach their full potential and to contribute to the economy, ” Tembon says.
In the developed world, girls perform better than boys in the classroom. That was a clear finding in three recent international assessments of reading, undertaken by PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment and PIRLS, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. In stark contrast, girls lag behind boys in the developing world. Recent international surveys by Francophone Africa (PASEC) and Eastern and Southern Africa (SACMEQ) show boys ahead of girls in all of the low income countries who participated in the assessments. Early Gains Lost in Later Years Clear progress has been made since 1990 in getting more girls into the classroom. Thirty years ago, girls represented 38 % of primary enrollments in low income countries. Today, girls represent 45 %. Gross enrollment rates for girls in low income countries have gone from 52 % to 88 % over the same period. “But it’s clear the numbers decrease tremendously when you get to secondary school and then with tertiary education, only about 5 to 10% of the students at the tertiary level are females,” says Tembon. In South Asia, only 47 % of secondary school-aged girls are enrolled in school, and women have, on average, only half as many years of schooling as men. Only 30 % of the secondary school-aged girls in Sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled. (Note figures from UN MDG taskforce 2004). These numbers are ubiquitous. On current estimates, only 27 of 118 countries will be able to reach the Millennium Development Goal – an international target to be reached by 2015 – of gender parity in secondary education. (Read the Global Monitoring Report.) “In primary school, most countries are at 50 % or even higher,” Tembon says. “It’s a different story when you consider secondary enrollments.” The Bias Barrier Enrollment isn’t the only issue adversely affected by discrimination. Mercy Tembon points out all efforts to date have been focused on enrollments – getting more girls into school – rather than performance. What girls are actually learning in school needs equal attention. “Studies have shown teachers perceive girls to be less intelligent and thus treat boys and girls differently. Accordingly, male students receive more attention from the teachers, are given more time to talk in class and ultimately are given more praise than girls in the classroom,” Tembon says. “As a result, there’s no self-esteem for the girls because they’re meant to be subservient, to be quiet and sit at the back of the classroom.” In some countries, girls are given the janitorial work in schools, while the boys are outside playing. Yet, statistics show the benefits of secondary education are clear. - In Kenya, child mortality drops from 118 per 1000 births for mothers with primary school education to 60 for mothers with secondary education.
- In Brazil, it declines from 67 per 1000 births for mothers with primary education to 37 for those with a secondary education.
- In Guatemala, the child mortality drops from 71 per 1000 births for mothers with a primary education to 28 for mothers with secondary education.
Breaking Down Barriers One way to help overcome the existing bias in the classroom is to have more female teachers. It’s a move that also encourages more parents to send their girls to school, according to Tembon. “In addition, textbooks and other related school materials must eliminate existing gender stereotypes such as those that portray women cleaning and cooking while men are shown as professionals such as engineers and doctors,” she emphasizes. In Guinea, a low income country with a population of over seven million, girl’s education has expanded over the last 10 years as a result of implementing these strategies, as well by providing teachers with gender sensitive training. Gambia has also had measurable success in bolstering the overall number of female instructors. A Bank-funded project reduced the entry requirements for female trainee teachers and provided academic bridging programs to bring them up to the level of their male counterparts. Education Key to Poverty Reduction Tembon hopes that the solution to gender disparities in education as a whole may be greatly advanced by helping developing countries with the required resources to provide quality education to all children. This is already happening with the global program Education for All (EFA)-Fast Track Initiative (FTI). “It’s crucial to understand that gender equality in education is at the centre of poverty reduction. We must also recognize that poverty is the number one reason for girls staying out of school. It’s a kind of catch-22 situation. You have to educate the people to reduce poverty and you need to reduce poverty to educate the people,” concludes Tembon. |
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