Girl's education in Africa

This paper focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and considers some of the most significant obstacles that African girls face in achieving the education that is their right. The paper reviews the most significant initiatives – those that are ‘gender-neutral’ and those that have a specific focus on gender equality – that have enabled African countries to overcome these obstacles.

Challenges to education include:

• the provision of education, such as schools, desks, books and teaching and learning materials
• the ability to determine the different needs of girls and boys and a political commitmenet to girls education
• administrative capacity, in ministries of education and in the wider civil service
• pay, conditions, and teacher deployment, as well as school management and regional supervision, data collection and anlyisis.

The paper argues that the education system needs to be accessible to both boys and girls, it needs interventions that specifically targets girls, and to reduce costs of education.

Initiatives that have improved school quality and contributed to increased girls’ completion rates include:

• making girls’ enrolment and progression rates a part of performance criteria for schools and staff members
• including gender awareness as an integral part of teacher training for pre-service and in-service training and performance review
• tackling gender-based violence and sexual harassment and reforming policy on the admissibility of pregnant girls
• employing more female teachers in rural areas.

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