Girls' education has always been a serious problem all over the world. Despite centuries of protests, three waves of feminism, and the struggle of thousands of women for gender equality still, women experience educational discrimination and various sorts of sufferings due to their gender in different regions of the world. According to the United Nation report, “it is estimated that 15 million girls – mainly those living in poverty – will never set foot in a classroom, compared to 10 million boys.” Currently, Afghani girls are facing educational discrimination where the Taliban government has forbidden girls from continuing their education above the sixth grade on religious grounds. While there is no religious justification for gender-based schooling discrimination.
There are various reasons for the gender gap in education. Some of the barriers to girls getting education are discussed below:
Gender Stereotypes: Girls are understood as responsible for handling domestic chores, raising the children, and taking care of the family. While boys are considered to be the breadwinners of the family. Thus, these gender stereotypes consider the boys as family breadwinners, and girls' financial dependence on men prioritizes boys' education.
Gender-based Violence: Girls often become victims of gender-based violence when traveling to, from, and within schools. Gender-based violence takes many forms, such as kidnapping, sexual harassment, physical assault, etc., and is sometimes even committed by male instructors, community members, and students. As a result, it causes the parents and girls to become deeply concerned, and they stop attending school.
Unfair Legislation: Although article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education, there are still laws and regulations in certain places that restrict equitable girls' right to education, which causes the girls to drop out of schools. Some policies include prohibiting the admission of pregnant girls and reinforcing discriminatory admission criteria.
Costs and budgets: Girls often have to leave school when their families struggle to make ends meet, cannot afford to bear their children's educational expenses, or pay for transportation. Since parents prioritize their son's education due to the stereotypical belief that boys are the family's breadwinners, it is more common for girls to drop out of school. The government also doesn't allocate enough funds or scholarships to support the girls' education, so girls stop attending school.
Situations of Conflicts and Instabilities: When conflicts, wars, and crises break out, women are the ones who suffer the most from injustice, poverty, and brutality. Education also becomes a significant concern when there is turmoil. When schools are attacked, plundered, damaged, closed due to insecurity, or used for military training, girls' education is affected. When there are conflicts, girls also leave school since gender-based violence becomes very prevalent.
The aforementioned are some of the significant barriers to gender equality in education. Gender disparity could result in conflicts if it’s not looked at time. So, these problems should be overcome by excluding the laws which promote gender discrimination, adequate funding and budgets should be allocated for girls' education, serious action should be taken to end gender-based violence, girls and schools should be protected from threats against girls' education, etc.
In addition, I believe that child marriage is another factor that prevents females from pursuing an education. An annual average of 15 million females under the age of 18 get married, or 40,000 weddings each day, according to a UN research. Since females in traditional communities are expected to care for their husbands and in-laws rather than seek education, marriage often causes interruptions in and endings to girls' education. Over 60% of child brides in poor nations lack a formal education, which is evidence of this.
Additionally, child marriage causes girls to get pregnant more often and earlier, which raises the dropout rate for females. Nearly 16 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19 give birth every year,…
You've talked about the gender gap in education in an exquisite way. What do I think, girls' gender is one of the fundamental causes of their marginalization and absence from school. Because low-income families often prioritize boys' education when making educational investments, the poorest females also have the lowest likelihood of finishing elementary school. Ironically, data shows that females from the same background are more likely to drop out of school than boys.
Social, religious, and cultural norms support gender inequality and prevent girls from having an equal opportunity to pursue an education. For instance, women and girls have a disproportionate part of the responsibility for caring for family members and doing home duties. Girls sometimes forsake the possibility of…
When highlighting the issue of the gender gap in conflict ridden areas, many encouragements need to be made in understanding the importance of females receiving education, in countries like Afghanistan where so much as secondary education is not admissible to girls there need to be reforms given the idea that the Taliban’s allow women to work in positions like doctors, teachers and nurses these positions will eventually run dry given that there won’t be any educated female personnel, to encourage female education there can be remedies to issues that may be faced a particular one that is parents having fears, securities to reduce these fears should be invested in from hiring females, and all girls schools
The gender gap in education is such a prominent coming of age issue, and though much light has been shed on it, concrete reforms need to exist often; young girls are prejudiced and are kept at home for various reasons, a prominent factor that I believe is also the existence of domestic labor an issue that is explicitly unhighlighted in Pakistan very often girls are working as domestic help, and this is due to the many expenses that parents have and so educational expenses that are believed to have to be bore are ignored, a strategic implementation that I believe was great was the Waseela e Taleem program, this program aims to promote the education of children who face financial…
The Gender Gap in education is a problem which is witnessed all over the world. Thank you for highlighting many reasons behind why this gap widens each year.
When it come to females and how they are impacted during conflict periods. We could elaborate more by referring to specific conflict zones and examples of what difficulties girls face as compared to boys in reference to educational opportunities. Along with perhaps examples on what roles girls play and the challenges they face during conflict times which prevents them from attaining education.
But the increasing gender gap in education is a issue which needs to be acknowledged and spread awareness about.