Education and Training in Ethiopia An Evaluation of Approaching EFA Goals

• All social, political and economic structures and development policies areviewed from the perspective of gender differences.• There is a recognition that gender equality presupposes structural changes.If a transformation is to be achieved, women’s influence must be increased, whichpresupposes knowledge of how awareness can be raised. The traditional FINNIDA projectshave, if gender has been considered at all, supported the WID policy rather than the GADperspective.A crucial link between widespread education and social justice relates to gender equity.In so far as endemic illiteracy among women aggravates their powerlessness in the familyand in society, better schooling opportunities for girls are an essential step towards genderequality. Ethiopia has a strong focus on girls’ education. However, while girls’ education iswell embedded as an operational focus at policy level, the wider mainstreaming agenda isless solidly established. In other words, the more long-term objective, mainstreaming, asopposed to the specific target of female enrolment/access, is not quite as clearly articulatedas a goal. There should be a focus on and research on both gendered access and qualityissues.In Ethiopia, gender mainstreaming in education has had two elements: incorporating agender focus into planning, design and implementation, and moving towards equitableparticipation in decision-making processes around the reform programme. The firstelement has received much attention. However, markedly less emphasis has been placedon the second aspect, which involves issues of representation and political power withinkey government structures and institutions.The distinction between gender mainstreaming and gender targeting can be mutuallysupporting and complementary particularly in TVET. However, a mainstreaming strategydoes not preclude initiatives specifically directed towards women. Similarly, initiativestargeted directly at men are necessary and complementary as long as they promote genderequity. But there is also the potential for an element of tension here in that gendermainstreaming is a concept that is arguably closer to a desired ideal, whereas gendertargeting can be a valid means of moving closer to that ideal, but is less of an ideal initself. The latter concept is also somewhat more limited than the former. As was found inthe aid projects implemented by the Finnish agencies, there was no systematic policycommitment to women’s participation in the planning and implementation cycle.Educating girls is mechanistic, linked to the aim of improving productivity and promotingother development goals as opposed to being related to wider gender issues in a nationalcontext. Secondly, while a strategic focus on girls’ education may be the only realistic wayforward given the huge gender disparities evident in Ethiopia, the danger is that such afocus on girls obscures and distracts attention from a long-term vision based on changingthe complex power structures that are the ultimate cause of the constraints on and barriersto girls’ full participation in education.A gendered understanding of non-formal education is essential. The problem is that itrisks creating a ‘two-track’ system where boys, whose education is prioritized, are sent toformal schools while girls are dispatched to non-formal schools. Generally speaking,59