The impact of educating women
Bereket Gebru
One of the indicators of whether a state is politically, economically and culturally strong is the condition of women in the country. A country in which the equality of women is not legally and practically backed is one which has anti-democratic political culture and a system that is not based on the free market. The socioeconomic conditions are definitely going to be backward.
After years of inequality, our country has in recent years set the legal and practical bases for the equality of women. As the days of inequality were too long, though, the struggle for instate equality has been very demanding. The constitution and other laws driven from it have concretely put the legal equality of women very clearly.
However, the main challenge in the struggle to ensure the equality of women lies in interpreting the legal and political packages of equality into practical daily reality. The achievement of such reality calls for changing the attitudes of individuals and institutions.
The issue of ensuring the economic equality of women has to do with solving the historic problems of ownership rights and access to sources of wealth. Averting the problem involves respecting women’s rights to own the means of production. Social equality would also be guaranteed through equal access to education and health services. Doing away with sexist cultural overtones and replacing them with democratic and scientific ones would also cover the cultural aspect of the problem of inequality.
The relentless effort in our country to develop democracy and good governance has enormously increased the participation of women in politics. 40-50% of the seats in regional councils are held by women. Similarly, 30% of the seats in the federal parliament are held by women.
In this article we deal with the participation and benefit of women from the highly expanding educational sector and assess its impact in general.
1 A system that focuses on education
The democratic free market system that is being built through the leadership of the EPRDF has identified building executive capacity as the main issue of development. It has also been working towards its achievement for quite a while now. The main obstacle holding our developmental and democratic directions that are capable of bringing miraculous results back is the problem of executive capacity. Executive capacity includes attitude, knowledge, modern work procedures and effective organizational structure. The government is carrying out measures to do away with the problems of executive capacity through two entwined directions. The first direction is the use of education and training to build and shape the attitudes and skills of citizens while the other involves building governmental executive capacity through civil service reform.
Analyzing facts leads us to the fact that the country has used education to solve all problems in the last 14 years. Internationally tipped to succeed in meeting the millennium development goals, our country has taken significant strides to ensure universal coverage of elementary education (1-8th grade). To depict a numerical backing of the success, let’s consider the education growth recorded at every level.
In 1991 when EPRDF came to power through popular struggle overthrowing the dergue regime, there were a total of 2,871,325 students in primary and junior secondary school (1-8th grade). This shows that only 20% of the children in the age group had access to education. Of the total number, 1.16 million or 40.4% were female students. The number of high school students in the same year was 404,861, with female students making up 43% of the number. Out of the 10,401 students studying for their first degree in that year, only 820 or 8% were women. Similarly, out of the 651 post graduate students in that year, only 51 or 8% were women. As can be understood from these data, education during the dergue regime was not well spread and it was limited to cities with unequal access to all.
Due to the priority given to expand educational coverage over the last 15 years, there has been a significant growth in all levels of education. Subsequent to making education free, the number of students attending primary education (1-8th grade) has risen from 2.87 million in 1991 to 12.4 million in 2006. That means our revolutionary democratic force has managed to take an average of 650 thousand students for every year it has been in power. Of the total number of students 50% were females. The participation of women in higher education has also increased over the years. Accordingly, the number of women attending their first degree education has risen from 8% in 1991 to 22% in 2005. Their total number reached 17,599 by then. When our technical and vocational training system was reorganized in a new way in 2001, out of the 2,631 students only 615 or 23% were women. In 2005 that number went up to 51% or 54,396 female students out of a total 106,336.
Giving 650 thousand students access to education every year demanded the construction of not less than 500 schools per year, introduction of ten thousands of trained teachers and the production and supply of books and other teaching aids. Our government’s belief that education is the key out of poverty has rationalized its move to invest a lot into it. We are, nowadays, enjoying the benefits of that investment.
- Women have become primary beneficiaries of our educational system
The figures cited above clearly show that education coverage has expanded a lot with women benefiting tremendously from the change. Recent trends show that a large number of girls have started to attend primary schools. That is increasingly kept them away from early marriage along with the legal coverage they get. All these things show that the foundations for the equality of women have been laid.
The equality of women is based on social and policy development that ensures the participation of women. That is the reason why revolutionary democracy stipulates that the equality of women will not be achieved separate from social freedom and equality.
- Educating women and its importance in radically changing society
Education is a tool for personal and social gain. With an increase in the number of educated people in a community the social importance of education becomes more notable. In addition to the personal gains of being educated, analysts argue that educating women have vast social benefits. In our country, educating women has fundamental importance in achieving the desired systemic change.
3.1The personal gain of women has increased because of education
The fact that women have more access to education and training in all levels these days sets them up to better personal gains. Better access to education has acquainted women with scientific approaches and modern work procedures. It has also helped them modify their methods of production. With an opportunity to learn, rural women discover methods of improving productivity in their backyard farms, stumble on to new ways of handling house chores easily, and learn how to manage income better. Those in urban areas could be more inclined to use small and micro trade to better themselves or get employment in her line of education, depending on their level of education. In general, women have gained a lot from the growth of educational coverage and that personal gain has a big importance in ensuring the equality of women.
Apart from improving the income of women, educating women helps build their confidence and increase their acceptance and stature in the community. That in turn weakens the long tradition of looking down on women. Through education, women develop a better understanding of the reasons that led them to backwardness and poverty. They can also scientifically study and understand the behavior, cause and methods of relieving themselves of the system that has denied them equality.
3.2Educating women and its pragmatic social importance
The main social importance of educating women is that it increases national wealth through improved women’s productivity. In rural areas where the majority of our women live, the education of women and increase in productivity is highly interlinked. Educating women create more room for non-reliance on one person in a family. It creates opportunity for women to contribute more to their family’s income. With a vast increase in the number of educated women, the impact becomes more accentuated at a social level.
Another social importance of educating women is that they help create a more ethical generation with the more education they receive. As the daunting task of child rearing is mainly laid on the shoulders of women, they have a great input in shaping the behaviors of generations. With education, they become more aware of their roles and their inputs become better.
Educating women also has a tremendous impact on social health. Out of the diseases in our country, 80% could be eliminated using protective measures. These measures include maintaining personal, familial and environmental hygiene. Therefore, educating women helps achieve social health; as women are generally in charge of personal, household and environmental hygiene in our society.
Another importance of educating women is that they have a key role in controlling population size. A big population size has proved to be a blessing when paired with a long cycle of economic growth as witnessed in the case of China and India. However, large population size is a curse in a shackled economic growth and widespread poverty. Even in a country of fast growth, unchecked population growth complicates and worsens efforts to ensure social prosperity and security. In our country, population growth, coupled with the degradation of natural resources, has been a threat against development. Analysts agree that educating women is an effective birth control. Education takes women off early marriage narrowing their chances of becoming teenage mothers.
Expanding educational coverage for more women to benefit from it also helps strengthen social equality. Both attitudinal and practical instances of equality can be achieved through education of women.