Education for Girls & Women – South Africa +

– Lys Anzia – WNN – Women News Network

– Girls Attend School in South Africa 1980 –

“Educate a woman, you educate a nation,” said Deputy
President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the 4th annual Women’s Parliament
Conference in Cape Town, Africa on Tuesday, 28 Aug. 2007, as she spoke out on
the importance for girls education.

Working with Cape Town’s programs to improve conditions for women, Deputy
Minister of Trade and Industry, Elizabeth Thabethe, has started a new finance
program to empower women entrepreneurs, “The Women Entrepreneurs Fund” which
has been developed to help educate women to create businesses of their own to
provide independence and education opportunities.

Education in Africa for women has faced a hard tide with a history of
conservative patriarchal customs that have caused tribal cultures to many times
marginalize girls education, placing it at the bottom of the list. Traditions
of early marriage, women focusing on family management and less access to the
use of information from today’s technology has created gender gaps in certain
areas of Africa, especially the northern regions.

According to UN statistics, South Africa, of all African regions today, has
the highest percentage of children who are given greater access to education at
the primary level. Children attending school at the primary level go from 96%
to 70% at the secondary level, then on to a drastic drop of 7% participation at
the college level. Unfortunately participation for girls and women come in less
numbers than these UN statistics show as many girls are kept from school to
work and many girls marry and are encouraged to give up their education to have
children.

UNICEF has also reported that despite improvements from a new democracy in
1994 which improved many economic conditions, education is still out of reach
due to poverty and a 25.2 % unemployment rate. Opportunities for girls
education on all levels are especially challenged as UNICEF reports, “Many
schools are not child or girl friendly. Some are situated far from homes,
exposing girls to danger when they walk to and from school. Girls trying to
stay in school are also at risk of being sexually harassed and exploited in
schools by teachers and fellow students.”

The unsettling 2006 Report of the Public Hearing on the Right to Basic
Education states: “Of great concern were the accounts of teachers taking
advantage of their positions of authority and coercing sex from girls. An
example was given of a learner coming late and having to exchange sex with a
teacher in order to be allowed onto the school premises that had been locked.”

Other very difficult conditions for girls are magnified as many schools do
not have separate bathrooms for girls and boys – which leads to great
vulnerability for girls in schools as they deal with low self-esteem in the
face of the dangers of sexual harassments and assaults in non-supervised rooms.

School authorities rarely challenge the perpetrators, and many girls interrupt
their education or leave school altogether because they feel vulnerable to
sexual assault, Human Rights Watch said. “Girls are learning that sexual
violence and abuse are an inescapable part of going to school every day — so
they don’t go,” said Erika George, counsel to the Academic Freedom Program at
Human Rights Watch and the author of the report. “South African officials say
they’re committed to educational equality. If they mean it, they must address
the problem of sexual violence in schools, without delay.”

Today the GEM – Girls Education Movement – is attempting to turn the tide
that makes it so hard for girls to stay in school under the conditions
described. GEM works to improve these conditions and to guide girls in school
to continue on, especially to receive a higher education.

GEM is not a single organization, “but consists of groups of children and
young people in schools and communities through Africa who are working in
different ways to bring about positive changes in the lives of African girls.”

Education for girls and women has many positive effects. Girls learn and
become more involved in society and leadership as they become women. Girls also
gain more self-esteem from greater knowledge itself and greater access to
knowledge.

GEM today is taking action to promote the education of math, science and all
new technologies to girls to help them step into the modern world in ways that
are active and encourage girls and women today to participate in the world.

In fulfilling a promise made six years ago to former President Nelson
Mandela to help conditions for girls education in South Africa, American, Oprah
Winfrey, has recently (Jan. 2, 2007) opened a school for “disadvantaged girls”
in Johannesburg. “I wanted to give this opportunity to girls who had a light so
bright that not even poverty could dim that light,” Winfrey said.

Educating girls can help “change the face of a nation,” added Winfrey.
“Girls who are educated are less likely to get HIV-AIDS, and in this country
which has such a pandemic, we have to begin to change the pandemic.”

The Association of South African Women in Science and Engineering (SA WISE)
is another association that works to encourage girls toward higher education to
become scientists and engineers. Their hope is that, “Girls in Africa should be
encouraged to take science subjects, not only those girls who might pursue a
scientific or technological career, but also those who would then be enabled to
apply scientific concepts in their daily lives. Taking science subjects should
not only be seen as a vocation but as a means to develop the scientific and
technological culture necessary for development.”

Sex education on the right to say no to sex and the dangers of HIV-AIDS is
also very important for girls as they begin at a very young age to actively
deal with the pressing issues of sex and rape. Lack of education puts girls and
women on the front lines of HIV infection which destroys their life’s dreams
and completely destabilizes their family structure.

“Education is a vital and basic right for all children,” says the 1989 UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child. Education for girls gives clear power in
society to enable girls and women to improve the conditions of living that many
of them are still facing today in South Africa.

Power for women in South African today is opened strongly through the
availability of greater education. The gaining of status for women as they
gather education offers a vast improvement in their own society. These
improvements, too, will improve life globally. This improvement impacts life at
all levels today – for all people.

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Sources for this article include MSNBC, Report of the Public Hearing on the
Right to Basic Education, AllAfrica.com, UN World’s Women – Trends and
Statistics 2000, UNICEF,4th Annual Women’s Parliament Conference Cape Town
2007, The Report of Public Hearing on the Right to Basic Education, GEM – Girls
Education Movement, Human Rights Watch, UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child 1989, YouTube UNICEF and South African Women in Science and Engineering.