Educating girls and women in Africa: pan African conference on the education of girls, in co-operation with the Government of Burkina Faso

During the past decade progress has been made in the development of educational opportunities for girls and women, but it is also true that women still lag far behind men in education and employment and ate virtually absent from decision-making activities. With only a year to go before the third United Nations Conference on Women is held in Beijing, China, in 1995, the commitments made by national and international bodies during heir many meetings and discussions have still failed to produce the results expected. The achievement of education for( all by the year 2000 remains out of reach, particularly for many African countries. Today, of a world total of 948 million illiterates, two-thirds are women. Of 130 million children with no access to education, 81 million are girls. According to the 1990 statistics for developing countries, women make up less than 20 per cent of the literate population. Boys' participation in education is in most case superior to that of girls, in some instances by as much as 20 percentage points. There is considerable deprivation in rural areas, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the very low level of female literacy is undoubtedly one of the major contributors to its sluggish social and economic development when compared with that of other regions of the world. Despite a narrowing of the gap in the provision of access to education for boys and girls, progress is extremely slow. This is especially the case with regard to school drop-outs, absenteeism and grade repetition. Imbalances are attributed, not only to the structure and organization of the education system, but also to certain traditional culture patterns and social behaviour, the allocation of family responsibilities to the sexes and poverty. In Africa, marriage has traditionally been of major importance for young girls, subject as they are to community values. In Somalia, for instance, early marriage is encouraged by parental pressure and more attention is paid to the outer appearance of girls (clothes, make-up, etc.), than to their intellectual ability. Little has changed in parental attitudes, even among the educated. Traditional cultural and religious practices take precedence over the need for educating girls and women. This appears to be a backward step in African society since progressive attitudes were once advocated. In 1908, for example, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik II, recommended schooling for girls as well as boys in order to promote progress towards civilisation: "We must change our ways and educate our children without regard to their sex", he said.