Girls and women face gender-based violence in schools and university, but a considerable number also find school to be a safe haven when they face abuse and poverty at home. Post-COVID education needs to rely on more sustainable and holistic measures that go beyond just accessing education, but also address the obstacles encountered by girls and young women in accessing quality education and completing the school cycle.

COVID-19 is a human, economic and social crisis affecting everyone, and Africa, like the rest of the world, has not been spared.

With the rapid rise of coronavirus infections, African governments have adopted measures to curb the spread, including closing spaces of worship, markets and educational institutions.

Close to 250 million African children out of school

By April 6, 2020, 53 African Union Member states had shut down their institutions of learning. This left over 20 million learners out of school at pre-primary level, 160 million at primary, 56 million at secondary, and 8 million at tertiary level, with no access to continued learning and teaching facilities across the continent.

The African Union International Centre for Girls and Women’s Education in Africa (AU/CIEFFA), in line with its mandate, organized two multi-stakeholder webinars on Addressing Impacts of Covid-19 Pandemic on Girls and Women’s Education.

The aim was to discuss the wide array of initiatives undertaken at grassroots, national and regional levels as educational responses to COVID-19, and come up with concrete recommendations to ensure that learning does not stop.

In his welcome address, Dr Mahama Ouedraogo, Director, Human Resources, Science & Technology Department at the African Union Commission, highlighted that with shuttered schools, African girls are at increased risk abuse, sexual violence, trafficking, social exclusion and forced labor.

Schools typically provide safe spaces for girls. When they are in school, they are less likely to be forced into marriage and be abused sexually. During this pandemic, however, schools are not there to protect girls.Dr Mahama Ouedraogo, Director, Human Resources, Science & Technology Department, African Union Commission

Additional risks faced by girls

Girls and women face gender-based violence in schools and university but a considerable number also find school to be a safe haven when they face abuse and poverty at home.

During the webinar, representatives from civil society, religious leaders and young women underlined how this situation had caused many young women to stop learning.

Many of them have had to return to the agricultural fields to help their families, have become unpaid domestic workers and are exposed to transactional sex and/or prostitution.

This crisis has also increased discouragement among girls and young women, clouded their hopes of success with heightened pressure from their parents to drop out of school, enter the labor market or get married.

Representatives from ministries of Education in AU member states shed light on their approaches to ensuring girls continue learning during the pandemic. Efforts have been deployed to disseminate reliable messages on TV, radio and social media to address education and health concerns of learners, parents and guardians.

Learners without internet or radio have received hard copies of teaching and learning resources. Radios have been distributed to parents and caregivers in remote areas, as teachers are actively engaged in radio learning programs to facilitate distance learning.

In many African countries, GPE is supporting continuity of learning, including the delivery of distance learning, especially for the most vulnerable, teacher support, safely re-opening schools, and strengthening resilience of education systems.Subscribe to our blog alertsEmail

Rethinking education post-crisis

Although the efforts being made are commendable, there is need for more sustainable and holistic measures that go beyond just accessing education but address the obstacles encountered by girls and young women in accessing quality education and completing the school cycle.

Before the epidemic, and according to UNESCO estimates, 23% of girls were out of primary school compared to 17% of boys. By the time they become adolescents, the education exclusion rate for girls was 39% in comparison to 36% for boys (UIS, 2019).

There is need for more governments to develop post COVID-19 strategic plans for reopening schools, plans that take into account the needs of girls and young women.

The lockdowns have shown the need for governments to invest in nationwide ICT infrastructure in schools, including strategic crisis management plans and funds geared towards education, to make it easier for a smooth continuation of education during times of crisis.

Keeping track of students who don’t return to school

In concluding the webinar, I underlined that as schools reopen, school administrators and teachers should make sure girls and young women are re-enrolling and returning back to the classroom.

Member states and development partners need to continue sharing experiences and best practices during and post the COVID-19 pandemic and reinforce the importance of girls and women’s education to the development of individual nations and the continent within local communities.

Ministries should be tracking the numbers of children affected by school closures and provide gender disaggregated data to ensure they can act if a significant number of girls and boys do not return to school.

The post Addressing the impact of covid-19 on girls and women’s education in Africa appeared first on Dr Rita Bissoonauth.

Girls and young women’s access, retention and completion in schools is still of huge concern in Africa. The latest figures from UNESCO (2019) show that 52 million girls are not in school in Africa, while 4 million will never step into a classroom compared to 2 million boys.

Africa also has the highest rate of out of school children and adolescents globally However, girls remain more likely to be permanently excluded from education and at a higher risk of being left behind. This reality calls for redoubling efforts to ensure education is both of good quality and equitable.

Achieving the aspirations of Africa’s Agenda 2063 and Sustainable Development Goals requires closing the gender gaps in education. Only by partnership, coordination and identifying and working closely with key community stakeholders can significant progress be made for girls and women in Africa.

Since 2017, the African Union’s International Centre for Girls’ and Women’s Education in Africa (AU/CIEFFA), in line with the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 16-25), is striving to involve traditional and religious leaders towards the empowerment of girls and women in and through education.

AU/CIEFFA’s believes that girls and women can play a key role in reshaping attitudes, social and cultural norms, and influence community behavior to promote girls’ access to quality education and retention in school. 
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Religious and traditional leaders engage and influence families, communities, parliamentarians and decision-makers in communities. They are gatekeepers of certain traditions and norms that are drivers of gender inequality. However, they also have power and influence to help unlock challenges and remove barriers to girls and women’s education by bringing every other key decision-maker on board.

Religious leaders fight for girls’ right to education

Queen Mother Theresa Kachindamoto, paramount chief (called Inkosi) from the Dedza District in the central region of Malawi, is a prolific traditional leader. She is famously known in her country as the “child marriage terminator”.

She has prevented more than 500 child marriages in her district, showing her commitment to the well-being of girls’ and women.

Her interventions and working together with CSOs, teachers, mothers groups and other religious leaders, have saved hundreds of girls from HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, and enabled many girls to return to school.

As a custodian of our traditions and values, I believe that we have the responsibility of choosing what is good for children. Giving them the chance to go to school is one of the best things we can give themQueen Mother Theresa Kachindamoto, paramount chief, Malawi

In Mauritania, Imam Abdallahi Sar encourages his community to educate girls in his mosque. He shared with AU-CIEFFA his core belief that it is impossible to conceive a better and prosperous future without African girls in school – more than half of the population comprises women and girls.

When you educate a girl, you are educating the whole society. Islamic teachings highlight that the quest for knowledge is important for both girls and boys.
 Imam Abdallahi Sar, Mauritania

Engaging traditional and religious leaders for more impact

By bringing together religious and traditional leaders into a constructive dialogue, AU/CIEFFA seeks to contribute to sustainable solutions to girls accessing and staying in school, and to foster new pathways to gender equality.

The Second dialogue of the AU/CIEFFA with traditional and religious leaders on girls’ education in Africa held in Kampala, Uganda, in June 2019, was an opportunity for 35 traditional and religious leaders on the continent to reiterate their commitment to uphold girls’ and young women’s right to access education and to learn at all levels of educational systems.

A key outcome of the dialogue was a communiqué outlining key recommendations on the necessity to:

• Redefine roles and responsibilities of faith-based organizations at community level in promoting acceleration of girls’ access to education and their retention in educational systems
• Establish or consolidate existing platforms for traditional and religious leaders who champion girls’ and women’s education in Africa with the facilitation of AU/CIEFFA
• Share best practices on girls and women’s education and empowerment with communities and implement innovative approaches and cultural transformation, in particular increase the completion rates of girls at all levels of education.

As a way forward, the African Union platform of the Council of Traditional Leaders in Africa (COTLA) was established as the ideal way to carry out advocacy and advance girls’ and women’s education across the continent.

The African Union and the Global Partnership for Education collaborate in strategic advocacy on education including the AU End Child Marriage Campaign, first ever High Level Heads of State Dialogue on Financing Education in Africa, promoting pre-primary education at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, and youth blog series recognizing young education innovators in Africa. AU-CIEFFA, GPE and UNGEI have also collaborated on making education systems gender responsive through the Gender Responsive Education Sector Planning regional workshops.

GPE’s Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) seeks to get innovative solutions into the hands of policy makers. Gender Equality is one of the thematic areas to be funded by KIX.

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