Gender issues in technical and vocational education and training

1
Gender issues in technical and vocational
education and training

• Short formal schooling for girls in Africa, most
  of it between 6 and 15.By then, many are married,
  have dropped out or fallen pregnant.

2

• Usable, effective and sustainable TVET should
  focus on these children, particularly girls, most
  of whom are married, pregnant or in the labor
  market by the age of 20.

3

• PPE is segmented by gender, accessible mainly to
  affluent children in Africa. Policy frameworks
  for school-based TVET lack sufficient coherence
  and may be market-led, varying in quality and
  standards. Given the cost of equipment and tools
  for TVET, it is ignored or minimized.

4

• Little experience with post-primary TVET for
  adolescent girls in Africa. Schooling is poor in
  quality and poor road and transport networks make
  schools inaccessible to most children. In
  schools, violence against children, particularly
  girls is prevalent making the agricultural and
  informal labor markets the preferred sectors for
  girls.

5

• Labour markets offer poorly paid, high risk,
  exploitative and hazardous jobs. Boys may opt to
  migrate to towns and abroad. Girls often marry
  and have children under conditions of extreme
  poverty and drudgery. This puts them at risk of
  being trafficked. With HIV-related mortality,
  early widowhood, single parenting and death, TVET
  is critical for the survival of children.

6
POLICY POSSIBILITIES

• Develop appropriate macro-economic frameworks to
  facilitate the financing of UPE and TVET.
• Improve access to diverse and good quality
  schooling for boys and girls to provide a sound
  foundation for TVET.
• Increase benefits accruing to girls and women
  through equal pay, promotion and conditions of
  service for men and women in the labor market.
• Develop and provide access to diverse and good
  quality, meaningful and relevant non-formal
  education for girls, poor boys and women where
  barriers to education are high.
• Integrate TVET into the formal structure of
  education and training, making equivalence and
  comparability with formal education easy.
• Return pregnant girls to school and avail them
  appropriate TVET.
• Strengthen science and technology training for
  girls and women and poor boys and men to make
  them competitive in the digital market place.
• Raise awareness of trafficking for sex and other
  work within and outside Africa, structure
  migration and develop meaningful alternatives to
  migration.
• Develop diverse partnerships to finance,
  supervise and institutionalize TVET in Africa.
• Build up databases on adolescents and other
  labor, disaggregated by age, sex, class and
  sector for policy development and training.