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Around half of
Yemeni girls in the age of primary education are out of schools. Crowded
classrooms, lack of female teachers and difficult access to schools are
of the main reasons behind this high percentage. PHOTOBYHAMEDTHABET
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SANA’A, March 26 — Now
more than ever, Yemen is coming closer to achieving the second Millennium
Development Goal regarding primary education.
There’s a considerable gender gap in primary education and national
illiteracy rates according to the government, which indicates that one out of
every two Yemeni females is illiterate.
However, a network of 12 Girls Education Coordination Councils was
established in an attempt to play a coordinating and influencing role in
increasing the enrollment rate for girls and their retention.
Council members include deputy governors, general directors of the relevant
ministries and department directors, as well as civil society representatives.
Education Minister Abdulsalam Al-Jawfi chaired the councils’ first workshop
wherein 70 participants from Yemen’s 12 governorates assembled for two days
to share success stories, identify challenges and obstacles and exchange
organizational and technical suggestions.
“The councils will create a cooperation mechanism between governmental
institutions, private sector and civil society organizations,” Al-Jawfi said
at the inauguration.
He stressed that there is only one solution to Yemen’s major problems, as
embodied in its high population growth rate, water scarcity and health
problems, and that is to ensure education for women thereby creating an
effective element within families.
The problem of girls’ education not only regards enrollment, but equally
important is their retention in school, as there’s a particularly high
dropout rate due to cultural reasons such as early marriage or economic
reasons due to poverty.
According to the 2005 Arab Human Development Report, females account for just
52.8 percent of the number of males enrolled in primary education, and for
secondary education, the rate is only 35.3 percent of enrolled males – making
Yemen’s female enrollment rates among the lowest in the Arab world. Over the
past few years, the Yemeni government has begun several initiatives to
decrease the primary education gender gap between boys and girls, including
abolishing school fees for girls, increasing the number of female teachers
and having religious leaders encourage Yemeni families to educate their
daughters.
Deputy education minister and director of the girls’ education sector, Fawzia
Noman, notes that educating girls is a requirement for real democracy. “In
order to experience true democracy, women should be educated, which will
result in them selecting their choice for appropriate members of Parliament,
rather than doing so according to their husband’s wishes,” she said at the
workshop, adding, “It also will result in political parties developing more
sophisticated programs.”
International organizations also have contributed to increasing girls’
education through anti-early marriage campaigns and school feeding programs.
“Education is the responsibility of society as a whole, not just the Ministry
of Education or the government. Other actors have an important role to play
as well and working together is essential to achieving constructive change,”
commented UNICEF MENA Regional Director Sigrid Kaag, who attended the
inauguration of the councils’ workshop.
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