Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

Summary of e-discussion facilitated by ActionAid International, United Kingdom
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Box A6.1
The All China
Women’s
Federation makes
education relevant
to learners
Source: L. Wright,
United States.
Schools often serve as sites for the socialization of gender roles that contribute to inequality.
Education needs to be relevant to its learners. The All China Women’s Federation
achieved high rates for rural girls in school by incorporating traditional classroom learning
with skills for growing crops. Because agricultural skills are valued in the community,
schooling became seen as an important resource, and women’s status in the community
was elevated. The positive influence of women teachers on girls’ education was also cited,
and appropriate support to recruit, train and support women entering the teaching force
was suggested.
the way education was framed in the report. These responses will be detailed
in the discussion’s second week summary below. However, it should be noted
that the volume and diversity of responses on education indicate that the report
should more forcefully credit the role of education in empowering women and
attaining gender equality.
Paying due attention to the Millennium Development Target of
achieving gender parity in primary and secondary schools by 2005
Participants expressed the need to give substantial dedicated attention to the
failure of so many countries to achieve this target. This is the only target set
for 2005. Its failure could threaten the value of the other Goals. This report
should be the one that builds a sense of urgency around this failure and should
propose very real steps that will help ensure that this target is met. Participants
also called on governments and donor agencies to keep their promises to ensure
that primary education is free and compulsory. Some even suggested that education
up to grade 12 should be free and compulsory.
The report’s comprehensive review of the progress of the target in Goal 3
shows that “few countries will achieve a ratio of 1.0—or gender parity—either
by 2005 or 2015. Many countries that are on track to meet the target will
do so in ways that are not empowering to girls because they will not increase
overall female enrollment rates.” The report should better document the reasons
that this target has failed. Comprehensively reviewing initiatives that have
led to progress in some countries and the strategies that have failed would be
very instructive. Illustration of radical actions required to achieving the target
would be the next step. In short, the report has the potential to make a real
difference—but fails to do so in its present form.
The following response summarizes the participant’s recommendations:
The report should be re-balanced to have at least half of it linked
strongly to the education target that is being missed and the other half
opening up the agenda. The heart of the report must take clear and
focused positions on what the global community should do to achieve
gender equality in primary and secondary education. This is a unique