Women Education: Challenges, Progress, Statistics and Current Situation
Non-members can read this story from here.
This article follows up on my previous piece Women Education is as Important as Men Education. You can read that story by this friends link.
I am not discussing those points here. Let’s discuss the current situation, challenges, and progress of women’s education worldwide.
What are the current stats about education by gender in the world?
According to Statistics Times, Women make up 49.76% of the world population. It means almost half of the world’s population is discussed, highlighting the significance of addressing their educational needs
As of 2022, about 90% of men and less than 84% of women are literate, according to Statista. While these numbers have improved since 2000, with an increase from 86.2% to 90% for men and 75.61% to 84% for women, there is still a long way to go.
Here is the chart of the “Global adult literacy rate from 2000 to 2022, by gender.”
Although the numbers increased by 4% in men and about 8% in women there is still a lot to do because literacy is not our target. These numbers would be good if several men and women graduated.
Seeing the higher education stats, we might need to worry because the stats are not good for both men and women. Although women got more graduation degrees than men on average, the overall stats are disturbing.
Statista reported in 2020, about 36% of men and 41% of women had tertiary education.
Educational attainment worldwide in 2020, by gender and level
Concerning, isn’t it? More than half of the world’s population didn’t have tertiary education.
These stats proved a point that if women get the opportunity equal to men they can achieve more than them. Women got fewer opportunities than men but still, disputes have the same percentage of secondary education women leading the chart of higher education by 5%.
Ok, looks good huh? You can ask then why I said we need to focus on women’s education more, right? It’s a good question because these stats show women got an education at least on the same level as men.
In my previous story, I said that we need to focus on women’s education in developing countries. Women got an education in countries like Iceland, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland. What about countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Afghanistan, and many African and Asian countries?
I was reading a report by the World Bank Group about the gross graduation ratio from first-degree programs (ISCED 6 and 7) in tertiary education, female (%)” It shocked me that there are countries with zero person female graduation rate and some notable and famous countries have less than 20% graduation rate.
Where we have countries like Australia with 89% and Finland with 80% of graduation rate in females we also have countries like Angola, Bermuda, Liechtenstein, Niger, Afghanistan, and Luxembourg with less than 10% of female graduates.
This list is very big; the more I read it, the more concerned I was.
Here is the complete List of Graduation ratios in tertiary education in females (%).
What are the Challenges?
In big countries, the challenges might be different but in developing countries, females face the following challenges in getting a basic education.
Poverty
The major cause is poverty. It is one of the most important factors for determining whether a girl can access and complete her education. Studies reinforce that girls are out of school due to low family income, lack of educational institutes in their area, living in remote areas, lack of support from their respective governments, no future job opportunities, and culture of the country of family.
Marriage
I am not talking about child marriage. Although it is also a major cause of lack of education people take marriage in the wrong way too. I am not against marriage nor do I support staying single but I am talking about the parent’s perspective of their daughter’s marriage.
They don’t invest in the education of their daughters as much as they like to invest in the education of their sons. They think their daughters will marry and go away and they can’t get any benefit from their education. It is a sick and wrong perspective that is common in most of the undeveloped remote areas.
Gender bias
Gender bias within schools and classrooms may also reinforce messages that affect girls’ ambitions, and their perceptions of their roles in society, and produce labor market engagement disparities and occupational segregation.
The behavior of educational institutes is also a major challenge for women to get an education. Rape and harassment cases in schools and colleges force parents to think twice before sending their daughters to education institutes.
What are the strategies the world follows or should follow to get every human educated?
I want to see every human prosper in her life and education is the key to it.
World Bank Group is doing great work in this regard. According to Feb 2024 data, there are 162 projects run by them that impact more than 150 million girls and young women worldwide.
World Bank Group is working hard and doing its best. They are doing or we can do the following things to impact the education of females positively.
1. Removing barriers to schooling
The major cause is poverty so the most impactful solution is to eliminate this cause. They are offering scholarships, stipends, grants, and conditional cash transfers for hard-working and deserving girls.
UNICEF also works with communities, Governments, and partners to remove barriers to girls’ education and promote gender equality in education — even in the most challenging settings.
The transportation facilities can eliminate the problem of hundreds of thousands of girls. Providing them the transport to safely get them to the school is one of the most impactful things.
Providing them the opportunities to work in a safe environment after studies can attract many girls towards education.
Education awareness in the community and among parents can also increase the education rate in females.
2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools
Good facilities can attract a vast amount of girls to get an education. By constructing and rehabilitating schools to create safe and inclusive learning environments we can bring girls towards education.
3. Quality of Education
Quality of education is the ruler and underdeveloped areas are not up-to-date. By providing them a good quality of education and supporting staff this issue can be addressed and resolved.
Good course outlines and world-competitive books should be taught in all schools.
Removing gender stereotypes from learning materials also helps in building confidence in girls to get more and more education.
4. Developing skills and empowering girls for life and labor market success
World Bank Group promotes girls’ empowerment, skills development programs, and social programs. They are reducing barriers and providing incentives through scholarships for women to enroll in higher education and TVET programs.
Why should we focus on girl’s education? What should we get in return?
When we focus on women’s education, the lifetime earnings of women dramatically increase. The national growth rate rises with a rise in women’s education and the growth rate of countries where women’s graduation rate is high is higher than the countries with low women’s graduation rates.
The child marriage rate declines rapidly with women’s education due to which child mortality rates fall.
