Education is a fundamental human right for everyone, recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN General Assembly, UDHR Article 26). The right exists on paper, but when it comes to reality, far too many women do not get to exercise this right. Deprivation of education is one of the many violations of women’s rights, to the extent that it is included in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Article 10 of the convention states, “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in order to ensure to them equal rights with men in the field of education…” (UN General Assembly, CEDAW). Although all South Asian countries are state parties to this treaty, addressing gender inequality in education is rarely a priority for them. Globally, there is rising conversation and action to focus on providing educational access to South Asian girls. While this is an important first step, amplifying action would require stakeholders from grassroots level activists to governments and international humanitarian organizations to combine forces and cooperate. The world is increasingly hopeful for South Asia to be able to achieve gender equality in education, and for good reason. Previous milestones pave the way for promising future initiatives that make for a compelling case of hope for substantive progress — and consistent, cooperative action is the key to turning this hope into reality.
The first step to advocacy is understanding the root of the issue, that girls need education for themselves first and foremost. It facilitates personal growth, allows them to build their own view of the world, and most importantly, fosters self empowerment. As Huma Masood, Senior Gender Specialist at UNESCO, and Jyotsna Jha, Gender and Education Adviser at the Commonwealth Secretariat, discuss in a UNESCO publication — “Education with its potential for promoting self-recognition and positive self-image, stimulating critical thinking, deepening the understanding of the structures of power, including gender, and creating an expanding framework of information, knowledge and choices, is central to empowerment” (2). Empowerment, from being able to exercise one’s basic rights to having autonomy over one’s life when they have previously been denied the ability to do so, is a gaping issue in the lives of South Asian women. With education, girls get the opportunity to realize their own being as an individual and as an equal member of society who deserves basic rights, respect, and freedom to live their life on their own terms.
With high gender inequality rates in most South Asian countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan, where girls are often denied this right, specific advocacy for girls’ right to education is crucial: “Advocacy around the importance of education affects all children; however, not all girls and boys are affected by this institution in the same way. It is established that education is directly correlated with decision-making power” (Heissler 737). This decision-making power is a significant element of empowerment, something that many girls in South Asian countries lack when they are seen as a burden to be passed off or used as a means to an end, more than their own person. With the highest level of gender disparities in education participation rates, the issues of empowerment and societal change are all the more relevant in the conversation on increased school participation of girls in South Asia (Jha and Masood 5).
Although this situation is a grave reality, there is more than enough reason to remain hopeful about change. Hope is not binary — as Rebecca Solnit says in her piece on The Guardian, “Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists.” The need for intentional action comes into play here, in exploring innovative measures to shift conventional attitudes that accept education inequality as permanent, into dynamic development towards gender equality in education. People can only bring about change in the real world through practical collaborative efforts, where no amount of standalone daydreaming will do the job. She explains that hope is not that everything will inevitably be fine, nor is it that everything will simply ever be worse; but that hope is an account of “complexities and uncertainties, with openings.” Learning from the nuances of past victories and failures reinforces creating effective solutions in the present. She also reminds us that the motivation for taking action comes from remembering previous achievements through the course of the issue. While looking to achieve future goals, keeping in mind the achievements of the past can help prevent surrendering to despair (Solnit).
In that vein, there are several milestones that deserve to be celebrated by the actors involved in promoting gender equality in education for South Asian girls. UN statistics show a significant rise in girls’ participation rates at all levels of schooling in the last few decades. Female net school enrolment ratio in South Asia went up from 67% in 1999 to 87% in 2018 at the primary age, and from 33% to 60% at the secondary age. The official number of girls out of school at the upper secondary age in South Asia went down from 41 million in 1999 to 31 million in 2018 (UNICEF). Long term joint efforts by grassroots campaigns, national social welfare programs, and support from international philanthropic bodies have made these breakthroughs possible, some of which are still in active progress. In her paper published by the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, Poteet analyzes the benefits Non-Formal Education (NFE) has had on expanding education access for girls in South Asia. NFE, which consists of alternative education programs outside the formal schooling system, has given many girls the opportunity to receive some form of education when formal schooling seemed unattainable. NFE initiatives like mobile community schools were effective in addressing barriers such as restrictions to movement and distance to proper schools especially in rural areas of countries like India and Bangladesh; communities affected by political conflict, such as Afghanistan; and lastly, conservative cultural practices such as child marriage (Poteet 70). These programs are usually carried out by local NGOs, and are largely supported and financed by international organizations such as the World Bank and Save the Children. Save the Children is one of the most prominent and active establishments in the social work field, focusing on disadvantaged children across the world. One of their objectives is working towards ending gender discrimination and promoting girls’ education. Their ‘Every Last Child’ global campaign launched in 2016 aimed to provide basic quality education to excluded children, including girls facing discrimination in vulnerable regions like South Asia (Girls’ Education).
In collaboration with NGOs and international associations, state governments play an influential role in the multilateral coalitions working to transform girls’ education. An example of a successful joint project is the Female Secondary Stipend and Assistance Program (FSSAP) in Bangladesh, which provided cash stipends for girls’ education based on certain eligibility and participation requirements. The joint subsidy effort by the Bangladesh government and Asia Development Bank showed several indicators of success, from reducing gender disparity in secondary school enrolment to delaying the age of females in early marriages (Khandker et al. 2). Such initiatives demonstrate the power of combining resources and amplifying individual strengths to widen the scope of success. Cooperation is also vital among individual countries, especially first-world nations who have the ability to provide financial support to low-income
countries seeking to invest in social welfare programs. To that end, foreign aid has played an important role in advancing the efforts of South Asian countries to promote girls’ education. For instance, the US announced a 70 million dollar aid to Pakistan for girls education in 2015 after Pakistan agreed to double spending for education, from 2% to 4% of GDP by 2018 (BBC). In a world where globalization is changing the definition of physical borders, countries supporting one another could be the very answer to creating real change.
These achievements should be seen as motivation to continue working on initiatives in progress to reach fruition. There is still a long way to go — “female literacy rates in 2021 are as low as 53.7% in Afghanistan, 65.8% in India, 59.7% in Nepal, 57% in Bhutan and 46.5% in Pakistan” (Poteet). Most endeavors refer to some common global goals in setting their plans, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targeting success by 2030. SDG 4: Quality Education, and SDG 5: Gender Equality, are two of the most relevant goals that guide action plans, but the emphasis is on the ‘global partnership’’ aspect of the urgent call to action which forms the basis of SDGs (UN DESA). Experts undoubtedly endorse information campaigns to spread knowledge about the value of education to those hesitant or unable to access it, but acknowledge that awareness by itself is only the beginning of an effective advocacy framework. A UNFPA paper suggests a research and implementation model to advocate for education of girls in South Asia, stressing on building coalitions among groups in gender equality and education fields to trigger the multiplier effect, as well as working with mass media and local communities (Ahmad 11). This microfocus approach is especially effective due to the collective work by specialists in each relevant segment, for example gender specialists at UN Women, and government representatives from education ministries. The multiplier effect is thus created when the strengths from each specialization merge to amplify one another, rather than having to rely on individual merits. This can help identify and solve specific roots of larger abstract obstacles like cultural or economic limitations preventing girls from getting an education.
Schools and other educational platforms can also be a vital organ in such partnerships, with both the responsibility and ability to create organizational change greater than individual or familial influences. A UNICEF report suggests that schools need to think beyond enrolment rates to adopt gender-transformative curriculums and community environments. Examples of such redevelopment can be specific budget allocation for girls’ inclusion schemes, and training for teachers to identify and avoid gender stereotypes in their lessons (Nugroho 14). Educational institutes adapting a more gender-responsive character can help girls and their families feel safer and more enthusiastic to go to school if they are assured of sensitivity to their specific problems and well-being. Research and funding support from governments and international organizations can help this novel approach to tackle the cultural and social barriers through visible solutions rather than simply conversational persuasion. With generally rigid structures and strict environments in most South Asian schools, students, especially females, will be more receptive to the idea of schooling if they believe they will be supported in overcoming their gender-specific barriers.
Particularly in the context of South Asia, there is strength in drawing from the regional similarities and common issues for the countries to come together and work towards solving this issue as a collective force. Although no two countries in the region face the exact same circumstances, and transformative action is largely dependent on each country’s own governments and policies, many of the barriers to education for girls in these countries stem from similar grounds. Shared cultural, economic, social, political, and even geographic factors, especially in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, make for a worthwhile rationale to boost productivity by pooling resources and strategies to propose and execute solutions. Collaboration has already been proven to be successful by partnerships of international organizations and government efforts, and building coalitions is also a highly proposed strategy by activists. The final outcome of a unified effort is often greater than the sum of individual contributions. In this case, regional cooperation might just be the defining factor in achieving gender equality in education for South Asian countries. Real change, after all, is a result of intentional action triggered by hope, and hope flourishes in solidarity.
An eye opening piece of work. Provides food for thought! The sooner the politicians take action, the better the future of South Asia!
Further research on the topic will surely pave the way for indepth understanding of the issue.