Gender and Education in Developing Countries

Introduction

Education is a basic human right protected and outlined by articles 13 and 14 of the United Nations of 1989. Education is both a human right and indispensable in realizing other human rights. In emerging economies and countries, from emergencies education is vital. Gender is important in the acquisition of education. It remains a pervasive influence on any issue whether we like it or not. Gender inequalities and sexism in education play a very important role in the healing and developments of economies emerging from civil strive. Kosovo has experienced both developing economies and emerging from civil strive.

In 1979-1994 during my time in education, political policymakers had come up with methods of reducing gender disparity in education. Girls’ enrollments in schools are started increasing in my country. Unfortunately, Kosovo entered into war, which destroyed all the achievements of gender equality that had been achieved.

Main body

There need to be reformed in education so that female-focused and top-town efforts programs are implemented. A gender equity focus program will allow even teachers to have gender dynamics as opposed to parity. Girls’ education is normally reflected by the needs of society. For the future for all societies to be certain, avoid and correct an intended consequences education on the girl child should be met the priority by policymakers. In the long run girl, child education should be of paramount importance.

Education remains the most important factor in empowering women and girls at the same time it lifts economically and socially. People who are social, marginalized if provided with education will be easier to get out of poverty, therefore education plays an important role. It is said that every woman educated is educating their own family as compared to a man educated meaning that providing education to women is developing a country.

Emergencies have serious impacts on the life of women, girls, boys without forgetting men. At this point, education needs such a society under such emergencies change. This is because during the conflict, boys’ and girls’ ability to attend school is hampered and their security becomes in question. In emergencies, also teachers find it difficult to attend school. In the period of crisis, the right to gender-sensitive education becomes critical as at this time women are normally used as caregivers to the injured and the remaining children during conflict. This was observed very well during the conflict period in my country Kosovo after 1995.

Education in emergencies becomes very important in short-term and long-term issues. It is important as it provides both girls and boys safety, during civil strife in Kosovo, both the fighting armies protected schools where people gathered from war, and teachers who were there provided education. This shows that schools sheltered children from violence.

Gender perspectives and gender equality principles are critical to ensuring that all boys and girls are able to benefit equally from education in emergencies and that “windows of opportunity” to promote more gender-responsive and gender-equitable educational systems and structures are exploited. Yet the gender challenges are great; boys and girls, men and women experience shifts in gender roles, relations, and identities in emergencies, creating new educational needs.

Male and female teachers also have different experiences and different priorities that need to be addressed. (Inter-Agency Network On education in Emergencies, 2007);

Most critically, there are often large gender disparities in both the supply and demand of education, usually to the disadvantage of girls. On the supply side, schools are often at a distance and not easily accessible for girls, especially disabled girls; they are often staffed exclusively by male teachers, with only minimal sanitation facilities. In some instances, being in school, and the journey to and from school places girls at considerable risk of sexual violence, abuse, and exploitation. Going to school may place boys at risk from different dangers, such as forced recruitment. On the demand side, impoverished families may prioritize boys’ education and not have the money to pay for girls’ school fees, uniforms, and other supplies.

Girls are also often relied on to do household chores, care for siblings and generate family income. Early marriage and pregnancy are additional barriers to girls taking up or continuing their schooling. Where girls are enrolled in high numbers, drop out rates towards the end of primary school are usually high (Inter-Agency Network On education in Emergencies, 2007)

Channels health and survival messages: education in emergencies provides a channel for conveying health and survival messages; for teaching new skills and values, such as peace, tolerance, conflict resolution, democracy, human rights, and environmental conversation. An emergency can be a time to show and teach the value of respecting women, girls, boys, and men equally in society. (Kirk, Jackie, 2004);

Builds the future: at the same time, ensuring children and youth access to education during times of humanitarian emergencies provides the essential foundation for successful economic, social and political systems upon returning home. It is vital to the reconstruction of the economic basis of family, local and national life and for sustainable development and peacebuilding. Ensuring girls access to quality education prepares them to play significant roles in reconstruction efforts in their communities and beyond. (Kirk, Jackie, 2004);

Builds community capacity: community participation is critical, it can be enhanced through capacity-building activities with youth leaders and school management committees, teacher training and capacity-building support for education officials are also important, especially in chronic crisis and early reconstruction contexts. These activities must engage women, girls, boys, and men, and be mindful of a venue to highlight issues of gender inequality in education so that trainees are more sensitive to the issues and are assisted in trying to overcome them. (Kirk, Jackie, 2004);

In order for these to succeed in both developing countries and in cases of emergencies, the case of Kosovo should be adopted. After the civil strive of Kosovo, communities have been sensitized to the importance of the girl’s and women’s access to education. Non-governmental organizations have developed strategies to ensure that there is equal distribution of women girls and men and boys. There has been improvement in access to the learning environment by internally displaced individuals and this provides quality and relevant educational opportunities to all of them. Policymakers have not been left behind in this race for finding a lasting solution to this problem.

There is a need for policy makers’ researchers to bear in mind the notion that gender is socially construed not naturally or invalid. In order to deal with these

1. cultural identities should be considered such thing as a woman is place is at home should be discarded to give a girl child an opportunity to intermix and intermingle.
2. interpersonal relationship there is some cultural beliefs that dictates that women should not mix with men. This culture should also be discarded

Actions that need to be taken to ensure gender equality during emergencies include

1. Sensitize communities of the importance of girl education
2. Develop strategies to ensure that women and girls, as well as men and boys, actively participate in educational meetings and in training. For example, pay attention to appropriate meetings timings, locations provided childcare facilities, consider single-sex meetings.
3. Include women and men on community education committees and provide gender training if necessary to ensure their voices are heard and taken seriously.
4. Engage women and men in school-related activities such as school feeding, arranging escorts to school parents mobilization.
5. Engage local community, especially women and girls in the design and location of schools’ sanitation facilities.
6. Include gender as an important dimension of the initial assessment and ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
7. Develop[p project indicators to reflect progress towards gender equality.
8. Design initial assessment, and monitoring and evaluation tools to gain gender-related insights.
9. Consult regularly with women and girls, men and boys as part of monitoring and evaluation activities.
10. In refugees and Internally Displaced person contexts, provide, to the extent possible to education for girls and boys.
11. Create access for all to quality and relevant education opportunities, pay particular attention to marginalized girls, for example, adolescent girls, girl mothers, and provide flexibility and “open” programs, with early childhood education programs if needed.
12. Set the hours for classes at convenient times for those children involved with household and fieldwork and clothes.
13. Ensure that learning environments are secure and promote the protection, physical, mental, and emotional well-being of learners. Pay particular attention to disproportionate impacts of insecurity on girls and women and vulnerability to GBV e.g. provide escorts to and from school for girls, employee classroom assistants, provide girls with reporting guidelines and follow-up procedures, establish codes of conduct for teachers.
14. Monitor sexual harassment provide confidential complainant reporting mechanisms and follow-up with clear procedures.
15. Provide training for teachers to enable them to create gender sensitivity learning environments.
16. Where single-sex classes are preferred, provide separate classrooms/locations or timings for girls and boys.
17. Provide separate male and female latrines in safe places.
18. Provide appropriate clothing and sanitary provision for girls to attend school and fully participate.
19. Promote learner-centered, participatory, and inclusive instruction, reaching to and engaging girls actively in class.
20. Develop gender-sensitive curricular addressing the specific needs, perspectives, and experiences of girls and boys, including reproductive health and HIV/AIDS content.
21. Include gender equality and gender-sensitive teaching strategies in teacher training courses.
22. Establish ethical assessment and examination processes, which protect girls and women.
23. Develop and implement a code of conduct for teachers that address sexual harassment, abuse, and exploitation. Ensure that it is consistently applied.
24. Use creative strategies to proactively recruit and retain women. ( Kirk, Jackie, 2004);

Education for girls and women both disabled and normal in Kosovo is grounded in the ideology of equality. Policymakers believe that it is a means of promoting equity between men and women who decide in rural and urban areas, hailing from different social classes and even in different cultural beliefs. This ideology has been possible through putting it into practice by parliamentary registration relating to education for all including disabled individuals in the society and gender equality.

Based on fundamental rights and human rights a person should contribute to the development of society according to their abilities and needs. It has become necessary for society to develop a mechanism, which will work against conditions that hamper quality education and gender equality. In my country gender, equality has been existing since time immemorial but society is moving forward towards reducing the gap of gender disparity.

Conclusion

To avoid and correct unintended consequences—including perceived attacks on local cultures and entrenched values systems—all stakeholders must have some ability to determine the shape, scope, and projected outcomes of reform activities. Maintaining one set of clear, population-wide guidelines for change and growth in Malawi proved more successful than simultaneously implementing several new activities or concurrently working toward all gender and education goals.

GABLE found that impact and sustainability called for diverse and holistic thematic emphasis, awareness of far-reaching expectations, complex and collaborative policy activities, constant communication, and flexibility to compromise. In the long run, collaborative approaches swiftly address negative and unintended consequences, build upon positive outcomes, and sustain change in gender and education (USAID; 2006);

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