Female education
Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education for girls and women. It is frequently called girls' education or women's education. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education. The education of women and girls is important for the alleviation of poverty. Broader related topics include single-sex education and religious education for women, in which education is divided along gender lines.
Inequalities in education for girls and women are complex: women and girls face explicit barriers to entry to school, for example, violence against women or prohibitions of girls from going to school, while other problems are more systematic and less explicit. For example, science, technology, engineering and mathematics education disparities are deep rooted, even in Europe and North America. In some Western countries, women have surpassed men at many levels of education. For example, in the United States in 2020/2021, women earned 63% of associate degrees, 58% of bachelor's degrees, 62% of master's degrees, and 56% of doctorates.
Improving girls' educational levels has been demonstrated to have clear impacts on the health and economic future of young women, which in turn improves the prospects of their entire community. The infant mortality rate of babies whose mothers have received primary education is half that of children whose mothers are illiterate. In the poorest countries of the world, 50% of girls do not attend secondary school. Yet, research shows that every extra year of school for girls increases their lifetime income by 15%. Improving female education, and thus the earning potential of women, improves the standard of living for their own children, as women invest more of their income in their families than men do. Yet, many barriers to education for girls remain. In some African countries, such as Burkina Faso, girls are unlikely to attend school for such basic reasons as a lack of private latrine facilities for girls.
Education increases a woman's, her partner's, and her family's level of health and health awareness. Furthering women's levels of education and advanced training also tends to delay the initiation of sexual activity, first marriage, and first childbirth. Moreover, more education increases the likelihood of women remaining single, having no children, or having no formal marriage while increasing levels of long-term partnerships. Through research a correlation between education and career opportunities and altered life planning is present for women. Cultural traditions that place emphasis on traditional gender roles continue to present obstacles to female education access in some communities. Women's education is important for women's health as well, increasing contraceptive use while lowering sexually transmitted infections, and increasing the level of resources available to women who divorce or are in a situation of domestic violence. Education also improves women's communication with partners and employers and their rates of civic participation.
Because of the wide-reaching effects of female education on society, alleviating inequalities in education for women is highlighted in Sustainable Development Goal 4 "Quality Education for All" and deeply connected to Sustainable Development Goal 5 "Gender Equality". Education of girls in developing countries leads to faster development and a faster decrease of population growth, thus playing a significant role in addressing environmental issues such as climate change mitigation. Project Drawdown estimates that educating girls is the sixth most efficient action against climate change.
Issues
Violence against women
students became a political issue in Sweden during the period from 1900 to 1940. By 1900, 66 percent of Sweden's teachers were women, many of whom worked in isolated rural areas, where they faced loneliness and the threat of male violence. Politicians, teachers, and female authors debated a number of solutions to reduce these threats, such as providing the teachers with guard dogs, weapons, and telephones.In Pakistan, a negative relationship was found between the formal level of education a woman attains and the likelihood of violence against that woman. The researcher used snowball convenient sampling, a sampling method where participants are referred. Ethical and privacy issues made this the most convenient method for the researcher to use. An informant played a major role in gathering information that was then cross-checked. The sample of victims of violence was made up of married women from ages 18–60 both from rural and urban communities. The study described different forms of physical violence that are already present and provided an idea of what women go through, even across communities. Education in this study was stressed to be the solution and a necessity in eliminating violence. A discussion of political and social barriers is needed.
The relationship is a lot more complicated than it seems, because women can be illiterate but still become empowered. Immigrant Latina Women were part of a qualitative study of 8 to 10 participant groups at a time and completed an 11-week program centered on self-esteem, domestic violence awareness, and healthy relationships. Immigrant Latina Women are a group of people that is highly affected by domestic violence. Though this program took place outside of a traditional classroom, dialogue, critical thinking and emotional well-being were stressed, areas that should be acquired while in school. Lastly, though many of the women were illiterates, they were still able to come away with a stronger sense of control over their own lives, an important life skill.
Different countries experience various forms of violence against women and girls. In Nigeria, UNICEF noted 16 facts about such incidence. Some of those facts include: physical effects, psychological effects, short-term and long-term effects; effects on the victims, the children and the society, among others. There are factors that promote violence against women there, such as a lack of female education, which should be made openly known to the public. Development can be possible if individuals are able to learn positive habits that will shield them away from violence. In the 1980s, Zambia brought in schooling at all levels.
Women's empowerment
Education systems vary in administration, curriculum and personnel, but all have an influence on the students that they serve. As women have gained rights, formal education has become a symbol of progress and a step toward gender equity. In order for true gender equity to exist, a holistic approach needs to be taken. Different places have different challenges requiring different solutions. However, focusing on women's empowerment in educational systems worldwide is shown to be successful. The discussion of girl power and women's education as solutions for eliminating violence against women and economic dependence on men can sometimes take dominance and result in the suppression of understanding how context, history and other factors affect women. For example, when past secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, referenced the tragedies of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan and the girls kidnapping in Chibok, Nigeria, as comparable, using girls' education as the focus, history and context were ignored. What led to the shooting of Malala was reduced to being solely about her educating herself as a girl. United States interference, poverty, and government corruption and instability were not addressed.Education systems and schools play a central role in determining girls' interest in various subjects, including STEM subjects, which can contribute to women's empowerment by providing equal opportunities to access and benefit from quality STEM education. To enhance female literacy in Bangladesh, the government has implemented a range of programs. These initiatives encompass distributing free books to all primary schoolchildren, providing free education for girls up to the university level, and granting stipends to girls attending rural secondary schools.
Gender equity goes further than simply enabling access to school; the curriculum also matters. There is a need to focus in schools on boosting girls' confidence and capacity to equally participate in society. The type of instruction teachers are using in the classroom determines empowerment among females and gender equality. Successful projects in Peru and Malawi have conducted teacher training using teaching guides for gender-sensitive instruction. The teacher guides have been created by Visionaria Network from Peru, and Girls Empowerment Network from Malawi. They both received grants from WomenStrong International. These projects creates guides and teacher trainings for teachers to support gender sensitivity in classrooms and support girls in recognizing and reaching their full potential.
Impact on socio-economic development
Based on reachers, there is a correlation between education and changes in women's life planning and decision-making patterns. Studies indicate higher education levels influence higher participation in decision about marriage timing, family size, and career progression. Which delays traditional domestic roles in favor of these professional advancements. Educational access has been linked to women stepping into leadership roles, entrepreneurial positions, and technical occupations in communities that once considered these roles as rare for women. In societies with strong traditional gender roles implication, families may subconsciously limit investments into daughters' education, especially when a women's value is often times measured by domestic work and child rearing. Members in these communities may resist female education; a seeming threat to social norms. This rejection can build onto a perpetuating cycle: education access restriction reinforces solidification in the expectations of a women's role.A systematic review on vocational and business training for women in low- and middle-income countries summarized the evidence from thirty-five studies regarding the impacts of such training programs. The authors found that these types of programs have small positive effects on employment and income with variability across studies. They found that the effects of training may increase with a stronger gender focus of the program.