The kidnap of more than 270 girls by Boko Haram in northeastern
Nigeria has now slipped down the news agenda. Previously it was headline news,
with the dramatic event on April 14th being the top story; a few
weeks later the rather late public statements by the Nigerian President
Goodluck Jonathan caused a further flurry of attention, especially as it came
with a wave of international condemnation of both the act of kidnap and of
Nigeria’s seemingly slow reaction. Michelle Obama used her husband’s weekly video
address to express her outrage at the kidnap; World Bank employees held a short
demonstration of solidarity, gathering outside their headquarters on May 7th
in a silent moment of reflection and giving out the following statement:
"This morning, hundreds of World Bank Group staff and
management gathered together for a moment of solidarity with the more than 200
Nigerian school girls stolen from their families in recent weeks.
Like many others, we are horrified by the abduction of these
girls. Every girl - every child - in the world should have the right to go to
school to learn and pursue her dreams without fear.
Our hearts go out to these girls and their families, and we urge
their swift release and safe return home."
The kidnapping does bring out the horror of
seeing terrible things happen to your children, evoking the Pied Piper of
Hamlyn robbing a community not only of the joy and laughter of young children
now, but also robbing it of its hopes for the future, of its next generation. As Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl who was shot in the head for
standing up for the right to go to school, has said, their “only ‘crime’ was
going to school and learning”.
Denying girls and women access to education has
occurred throughout history and continues today, though not usually in such
dramatic fashion as happened to Malala or to the girls of Chibok in Nigeria. The campaign group Women without
Borders, which stands up for women and girls’ human rights, notes that:
“Two-thirds of the world’s 774 million illiterates
are women. Of the 72 million children who are growing up without an education,
34 million are girls. Less than a third of all girls are enrolled in secondary
school.”
This is one of the best sites to gain a
quick overview of the situation facing girls’ education today.
The failure to see the necessity of
educating girls relates of course, to the patriarchy that dominates all
cultures and to the essentialism that sees girls as less educable, and in need
only of such education that will suit them to a life where they fulfill their roles
as homemakers, mothers and wives. The situation has clearly changed in many parts of the
world, where girls outnumber boys in many University courses and in areas
traditionally the preserve of men, such as on medical courses. These changes have only
come about after struggle though – what’s happening in many countries now
echoes what was happening in Victorian England for example, where education
wasn’t seen as necessary. It was often the actions of women educationalists
that brought about reform. These
Victorian-era struggles are described in detail in the literature but for a
quick summary, see http://www.logicmgmt.com/1876/overview/victorian_woman/victorian_woman_education.htm
Here it was slowly realized that it might
be a good idea to educate women so that their husbands could have intelligent
conversations with their wives, for example!
So denying women decent schools and good
quality education are hardly new and not confined to poorer parts of the world.
Some of the current debates also tend not to see female education as a human
right in and for itself, but as contributing to some greater good. Thus the
World Bank has a slogan of ‘Gender equality as smart economics’, suggesting
that in the current economic climate, women should be treated equally as this
brings economic advantage. One of its reports measures the effects of investing
in girls, and suggests that:
“Returns to girls’ education in developing
countries are substantial, and in most cases they exceed those observed in
developed countries and those of boys. A cross country study on the effect of
education on average wages (a proxy for productivity) estimates that primary
education increases girls’ earnings by 5 to 15 percent over their lifetimes,
while boys experience a rate of return between 4 and 8 percent (Psacharopoulos
and Patrinos 2002).4 And, for
example, returns to female secondary education are 15 to 25 percent higher for
women than men in Thailand, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire (Schultz 2002).” (Chaaban and Cunningham 2011, p2)
Accusing the World Bank of the charge that
it’s only interested in girls as investments is not entirely fair, as whatever
its motives, the World Bank has been one of the champions of equality in girls’
education. Some of its reports have tried also to consider how other factors
such as class and ethnicity interact with gender to create deeper inequalities.
The purpose of looking at intersectionality is to show up interlocking oppressions, and the report
notes that,
“Lewis and Lockheed (2007) show that inter-group disparities are
common phenomena in countries with diverse ethno-linguistic populations.
Testing the link between girls’ school participation and ethno-linguistic fractionalization
across 120 countries, they show that countries with multiple ethnic and
language groups have lower primary school completion for girls, a larger gap
between male and female primary school completion rates, and lower overall
achievement.”
It’s not surprising that women in certain
ethnic groups face worse access to schools, but it’s good to have this
documented factually. Thus in India, “Das et al. (2010) find that educational
attainment among tribal women in India is lower compared to tribal men and
other groups, including women in the disadvantaged castes. Further, rural
tribal women face additional disadvantages due to their remoteness from rural
and urban centers, which translates into triple disadvantages based on their
tribal affiliation, gender and place of residence. Similarly, King and van de
Walle (2007) report that indigenous women in Lao PDR are five times more likely
to never attend school compared to nonindigenous women. Whereas 34 percent if
non-Lao-Tai women never attended school in 2003, the share among Lao- Tai girls
was only 6 percent.” (Tas, Reimao and Orlando 2013, p8)
Gains have certainly been made over this
century; in 2001 for example, in Afghanistan, only 5000 girls were enrolled in
school. In 2011 it was 2.7 million – a huge increase since the fall of the
Taliban. There is concern now however, that this gains might be reversed, and
Oxfam has started a campaign to alert the international community that girls’
education is once again at risk. See
The full report is available from:
It calls upon the international community to
Focus
on improving secondary and higher levels of education;
Support the Afghan government to increase
the number of female-friendly, well-equipped schools for girls, especially in
rural or remote areas;
Increase the number and quality of female
teachers, especially in rural or remote areas;
Ensure that girls’ access to education is
not sacrificed in any political settlement (with insurgent groups) and girls’
access to education continues to improve.
It also says the Afghanistan Ministry of Education
should improve
the monitoring and accountability of schools.
These
points could be part of a global manifesto to ensure that girls and women have
continued access to education. Of course, in many parts of the world, the
education available for boys is also of not the best quality and so we should
not be calling for girls to have equal access to boys. Rather, we need to call
for excellent education for all.
There’s
a video exploring some of these issues in Pakistan. See:
Boko
Haram’s actions have certainly intimidated parents in northeast Nigeria not to
send their girls to school. Their inhuman and criminal acts seem to be
mobilizing Nigerians into political activity and something surely has to give
soon in that troubled country – a country with many intelligent, articulate and
capable women in positions of high office and authority. Let’s hope that the
Daughters of Chibok are returned soon.
References:
Chaaban, J and Cunningham, W.
(2011) Measuring the Economic Gain of Investing in Girls: The Girl
Effect Dividend, World Bank Report, available from http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/08/08/000158349_20110808092702/Rendered/PDF/WPS5753.pdf
Tas, E.O., Reimao, M.E., and Orlando, M.B. (2103) Gender, Ethnicity and
Cumulative Disadvantage in Education: Evidence from Latin American and African
Censuses, World bank Report, available from http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/12/30/000158349_20131230111115/Rendered/PDF/WPS6734.pdf
