The Role of Education in Achieving Gender Equity

  

Date Posted: 10/28/2012 4:02:46 PM

Posted By: vann  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 1015

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Schools are useful vehicles through which gender inequality can be tackled. This can be through the following ways;

a)Modification of attitudes;
The school can be used to bring change of attitude in learners on sex roles. This can be achieved through discussion on issues such as sex roles and stereotyping. Retrogressive customs that hinder the advancement of girls can be analyzed and better alternatives suggested. The curriculum should come out clearly on sex role and sex stereotyping. The girls should be encouraged to think in the same way as the boys do. By making the girls believe that they can do just as better as the boys, I think we should be somewhere trying to achieve gender balance.

b) Revision of textbooks.
School textbooks particularly set books should be revised to change the 'female image'. The set books should prepare both boys and girls for challenges ahead of them. No characters should be portrayed as weak simply because they are women or strong mainly on the basis of being male. Women and girls should be portrayed positively and writers should employ neutral language when writing books. You remember that most books and writers have used their styles in a way to represent a woman as a weak gender. I think it is time we should try to change their minds to believe and see that they are not a weak gender.

c) Encouragement of girls in science subjects.
Girls should be introduced to and encouraged to pursue technical education subjects that are oriented to technical jobs in addition to science subjects, such as Home Economics. Deliberate efforts should be made to encourage girls to take science oriented subjects. Science subjects should be demystified for the girls to take them with ease. It is evident that many girls today have expressed

their capability of tackling those subjects that were once thought to be for the boys.

d) Sensitization on education for the girl child.
The public should be sensitized through mass media and other forums to take the girl child to school. Girls should be allowed to go back to school after delivery, depending on the circumstances rather than being expelled completely as undesirable examples or models for others. No child should be denied education simply because the child is female.

e) Government support.
Whenever boy's education is given preference, girl's education should receive deliberate support through scholarships and bursaries. There should be support of non formal education of women groups and adult literacy classes. The government should take stern measures against members of society who contribute to daughter's dropout cases through retrogressive actions such as circumcision, early marriage or deliberate refusal to pay fees. Girls should be allowed to go back to school after delivery depending on circumstances. The government has a hand in helping bring the issue of girl child education to proper light.

f) Establishment of girls schools.
More schools for girls especially boarding schools should be established particularly in crime prone areas such as North Eastern Province or where cultural practices such as female circumcision and early marriages are rampant. We all understand how far some regions in the country have been left behind on this important matter. Such places or areas should be looked at with obvious helping eyes to eradicate unwanted cultures that have been destroying girls.

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