When the International Day of the Girl Child was observed last month, much emphasis was placed on the lack of access to education which is still a major issue for many adolescent girls in several developing countries around the world. This was brought sharply into focus by the recent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, both of whom are children’s rights activists, but more so Malala who had been shot in the head by the Taliban over her advocacy for education.
The theme for this year’s observance, “Empowering Adolescent Girls, Ending the Cycle of Violence,” also served to remind of the threat of violence to adolescent girls and called to mind the abduction of close to 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria in April this year by the militant group Boko Haram. More than six months have gone by and while a few of the girls managed to escape, the majority remain with their captors. The girls who were kidnapped were attending boarding school. Boko Haram, like the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan oppose the education of girls.
There are other countries where education is not so much opposed but seen as not useful as beneficial for girls who are expected to fill roles as wives, mothers and housekeepers. A recent book published by the World Bank, Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity, points to the fact borne out by research that girls who have not been educated were six times more likely to enter into child marriages, compared to girls with a high school education.
The United Nations foresees a world where girls have equal access with boys to the education and/or training which would allow them to determine their own path in life. To do otherwise, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says, “grossly violates their rights, diminishes their power and suppresses their potential.”
Guyana has seen immense progress in its education sector. It has achieved universal primary education and is now seeking to attain the same target in secondary education, which may prove to be somewhat of a challenge. Guyana’s problems where education is concerned are not with regard to lack of access by girls, but by poorer children. And while this is more prevalent in rural and hinterland communities, it is certainly an issue in the towns and suburbs as well.
A case in point is the number of pre-teen and teenage pregnancies reported as occurring in hinterland areas, which point to an end of official schooling for the girls concerned, many of whom are at the age where they would have just completed primary school. Another is the number of young bandits on the prowl. A visit to the Magistrates Courts would reveal that several of those captured after committing robberies are in their teens and for many their careers did not start the day they were caught. A drive around inner Georgetown on any given day would reveal many of these youths liming on street corners or basically sitting around doing nothing. Girls, meanwhile, have been achieving greater heights in the realms of academia.
The reason for this gender imbalance is not known. There are no documented studies that provide a cause or offer recommendations to correct it, although the results of it are more than visible.
Earlier this week, when the Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited launched its 2014 Youth Link Apprenticeship Programme, there were only 9 young men in a group of 32 apprentices. This was particularly illuminating, given that the world of banking and finance had long been a male precinct in this country. Chief Education Officer Olato Sam, who made remarks at the launching lamented the imbalance and said he hoped it did not point to a deeper issue that would warrant an investigation. Sadly, that boat has already sailed and Mr Sam would do well to commission a study with haste or make such recommendation to his boss.
But he did not need the Republic Bank programme to reveal that boys are not taking as much advantage of the education system as they did in the past. Even a cursory glance at high school classrooms will reveal this phenomenon. It is even more pronounced at the tertiary level and a look at the University of Guyana’s Class of 2014 which formally graduates this Saturday will be telling as it has been for the past 4 or 5 years, maybe even more.
It is not that Guyana has gone overboard with making education accessible to girls and has left boys behind. So there must be a deeper-seated problem which needs urgent investigation and solutions, and the sooner this is done, the better for all of us.