GIRLS EDUCATION IN SUBSAHARAN AFRICA

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GIRLS EDUCATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

• FAWES SUCESSFUL INTERVENTIONS
• Ms. Simone de Comarmond
• Chairperson-FAWE Africa
• MARCH 2009

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Girls Education in Africa - Overview

• Education sector in SSA experiences formidable
  challenges despite progress made since Jomtien
  1990 and Dakar 2000
• Upward trend in average PS enrollment rates (78
  in 1990 ? 98 in 2004/5)
• But gender gap persits in access, retention
  achievement at all levels
• EFA and MDG target of gender parity in primary
  level access by 2005 missed
• Only 1 girl for every 2 boys makes it to SS 1
  girl for every 3 boys completes SE (accounts for
  45 of girls)
• Even smaller number of girls (40) attain higher
  education
• Gender bias in pedagogy, learning materials,
  school management
• Socio-cultural attitudes and practices against GE
  die hard in many countries
• (Figures from UNESCO DAKAR 7 EFA Report

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FAWE - Background

• FAWE is a home-grown African NGO created in 1992
  to advocate for GE gender equity in African
  education by promoting access, retention and
  performance of girls in school. FAWE has 36
  chapters across Africa and strives to undertake
  comprehensive and holistic actions at all levels
  of African education systems
• Raise awareness about importance of educating
  girls
• Influence integration of gender in education
  policy formulation
• Demonstrate how to achieve girls access,
  retention achievement through in-country and
  school interventions
• Convince African MoE to replicate and mainstream
  FAWEs best practices and successful models
• Increasingly FAWE is working towards making the
  HE environment gender responsive and expanding
  learning opportunities of young women in
  post-conflict situations through TVET

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EVOLUTION of FAWE

• From GE advocacy at policy level to influencing
  policy/plans.
• From focus on UPE access to classroom processes
  and community advocacy for basic education.
• From focus on girls only to a gender approach ?
  with a view to transforming gender relations
  through education.
• From scattered single interventions to a holistic
  model of transforming a normal school into a
  gender-responsive school model.

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Meeting the challenges
FAWEs Vision A world in which gender
disparities are eliminated and all African girls
access education, perform well and complete their
studies.

• Our Mission To promote gender equity and
  equality in African education by fostering
  positive policies, practices and attitudes
  towards girls education.

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Barriers to girls education in SSA

• Lack of national gender responsive polices and
  plans- in situation were the polices are gender
  responsive, translating these into actionable
  plans is still a challenge.

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Barriers to girls education in SSA

• Gender insensitive school learning environments
• School infrastructure is often gender-insensitive
  
• Crowded and/ or dilapidated classrooms with
  inadequate water and sanitation facilities
• Sexual violence in school
• Lack of gender sensitive curriculum
• Gender bias in pedagogy, learning materials and
  school management
• Female teachers are particularly
  under-represented at secondary and tertiary
  levels, 29 and 28 share of teaching staff
  respectively

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Barriers to girls education in SSA

• Social-cultural attitudes and practices against
  girls education die hard in many SSA countries.
• Social/ Poverty related factors
• Gender violence, Low value placed on girls
  education
• Conflict/post conflict situations
• Impact of HIV/AIDS ( orphans, child headed
  households and in some cases girls are withdrawn
  from school to look after the sick)
• Poor management of sexual maturation partly due
  to poverty or lack of knowledge on good hygiene
  practices
• Girls engaging into harmful practices
  (prostitution) to earn income for the family.
• Cultural related factors
• FGM, Early marriages, Gender roles
• Overall, retention in school and completion of
  the cycle remain major challenges for both girls
  and boys across the region.

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FAWES STRATEGIES

• 1. Policy influencing for gender responsiveness
• 2. Evidence based policy advocacy
• 3. Undertaking gender responsive demonstrative
  interventions
• 4. Strategic partnership with MoEs - For
  scaling-up and mainstreaming efforts to be viable
  and lasting, Ministries of Education must be
  implicated in all initiatives from the conception
  stage. The signing of MoUs with MOE (15 NCs so
  far) has facilitated the institutionalization of
  FAWE-MOE relationships

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FAWES GENDER INTERVENTIONS

• FAWEs mandate is to demonstrate rather
  than undertake large-scale interventions.
• Key gender responsive demonstrative
  interventions to achieve increased access,
  improved retention and better performance
  include
• Gender Responsive School (COE)
• Tuseme- Empowerment of Girls
• SMT
• GRP
• Bursary
• Educating mothers to support girls education
• Support for girls in conflict situations

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FAWES RESULTS (1)

• Stimulating gender-responsive policy
  reforms and supporting their translation into
  practice
• FAWE has been able to encourage specific policy
  provisions and strategies to improve girls
  participation in education in various national
  policy documents through both active policy
  dialogue and advocacy
• 27 education policy documents were reviewed(
  between 2004-2008) for genderresponsiveness by
  NCs and Governments were informed on existing
  gender gaps in the policies
• Re-entry policies for dropout girls due to
  pregnancy introduced in 7 NCs (Cameroon, Gambia,
  Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and
  Zanzibar)
• Sanctions against early marriages and sexual
  harassment instituted in 3 countries Kenya,
  Rwanda, Zambia.

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FAWES KEY RESULTS (2)

• Stimulating gender-responsive policy
  reforms and supporting their translation into
  practice
• Some of the recommendation of the study conducted
  (2004) on the Analysis of the Gender-Responsivenes
  s of Education Policy Documents in Malawi were
  adopted during the development of the National
  Education Sector Plan
• A gender focused review of the TVET policies in
  the three countries( Burundi, Liberia and Sierra
  Leone) revealed the existing gender gaps as well
  as opportunities in policy implementation. The
  findings have informed the design of FAWEs
  proposed TVET intervention in these countries.

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FAWES KEY RESULTS(3)

• Contributed to improved girls access,
  retention, participation and performance
• FAWE provided bursary grants to severely
  disadvantaged girls and boys to promote access,
  retention and performance
• To date over 36, 000 girls and boys have
  benefited from a full academic cycle support
• Some National Chapters have also influenced
  ministries of education to mainstream bursary
  schemes. The Gambia, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia
  have institutionalised and expanded their bursary
  schemes, thereby benefiting a wider population of
  marginalized girls

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FAWES KEY RESULTS(4)

• Influencing replication and
  mainstreaming of FAWEs successful models for
  girls education
• FAWEs successful models have been
  mainstreamed in national education polices and
  practices
• Through strengthened working relationships with
  ministries of education, Tuseme, COEs, GRP,
  sexual maturation management and SMT have been
  mainstreamed into national education policies and
  practice, specifically
• 2 FAWE models (Tuseme and COE) have been
  mainstreamed into Tanzania Secondary Education
  Development Plan (SEDP).
• COE, Tuseme and sexual maturation have been
  mainstreamed into the Kenya Education Sector
  Support Programme (KESSP).
• COE model has been replicated in six more
  countries, while Tuseme, GRP and SMT were each
  replicated in 12 countries.

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LESSONS LEARNT(1)

• Advocacy must be accompanied with capacity to
  influence policy formulation and implementation
  as well as reform processes.
• 2. FAWE is convinced that several dimensions of
  girls education need to be addressed
  simultaneaously in order to make a lasting
  impact.
• 3. A holistic model integrating multiple supply-
  and demand-side factors is the way to go ?
  Gender-Responsive School (GRP)/COE.
• However specific interventions must be
  incorporated where needed, particularly in
  conflict and post-conflict situations, HIV-AIDS
  stricken communities, or communities with
  practices that are harmful to girls such as FGM

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LESSONS LEARNT(2)

• A gender approach is necessary to address both
  girls and boys education ? Advocacy at policy
  level is not enough - must be combined with
  advocacy targeting practitioners and stakeholders
  in the community.
• Improving educational quality for both girls and
  boys requires gender-responsive approaches that
  go beyond the school to reach communities and
  other practitioners.
• 6. Gender equity and equality in education are
  not punctual elements but rather permanently cut
  across all levels of education policy-making and
  practice.

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WAY FORWARD

• Continue lobbying and convincing more
  governments/MoE to mainstream gender in national
  education polices and plans.
• Build long-term, sustainable partnerships with
  MoE and financial partners to ensure that gender
  reponsive policies and plans are funded and
  implemented.
• Scale up FAWEs COE and/or other individual FAWE
  models
• Continue to influence the mainstreaming of FAWEs
  sucessful interventions into national edcaution
  polcies and plans.
• 5. Continue focus on Secondary school with
  special attention to vocational/professional
  training and SMT training for girls.

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Thank you
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THANK YOU