It is generally accepted that in
today's society women have access to education and can promote themselves
much more easily than in the seventies. Women's changing role is happening
because women nowadays are educated. It is recognised as an essential need
for achieving equality in most walk of life. There are still problems
for girl pupils or women students but no one would deny their rights to
study or question it.
This is a comforting viewpoint until
you begin to dig a little further in the subject of women in education.
In the very informative Women Human Rights net page. The most interesting
seems to be the follow
up of the Beijing conference.
The Beijing conference identified
640 million adults women who remain illiterate in the world, mostly
in the developing countries. Because women often have to cope with home
duties: child rearing and everyday domestic tasks, they do not follow their
education and often the girl child will leave the education system without
any qualification.
The conference is mainly concerned
with global education for women. It is reassuring to know that there are
strategies set in place for the promotion of women and girls education.
My main critic of this conference is that it does not have strategies explore
in any form how these stategies can be practically implemented at ground
level. There was no links to more specific situations on women.
However, The Annual International
Conference(IWD) focusing on the themes of current interest to women learners
and those working with them, (NIACE's Annual International Women's Day
Conference in Birmingham, reports on the 2000
and
2001
conference.
Their understanding of women mutifacetted form of learning is encouraging.
The reality is that not all women have been able for all sorts of reasons
to follow their education. Some have qualifications and experience but
wish to further their knowledge during a career break. Mothers may wish
to have an educational focus whilst raising their young children. They
are the child first educator. A role which is demanding and ongoing for
many years. Others are studying to shape a career for the future. Facilities
for these women ought to be part of a stategy. It also takes little account
of the improvement of women education in terms of skills. In internal training
in trade and industry, it is often the men who go on courses. Holding key
positions, they are thought to implement a trickle down theory of their
acquired knowledge to women working in their unit or department.
My working experience in education
tends to mirror the conference statement on the education system. Efforts
have been made to correct the stereotype role of male and female in text
books but the promotion of stereotype images of women is still prevalent.
The language of text books remain bias in most subjects or its approach
is male orientated. One example in my view is History where men's achievements
are promoted and women's achievements left in the background but for few
exceptions. Curricula are also gender biased, the commission says, especially
in science girls are missing out on basic mathematics, science and technological
skills which would give them a kick start in life as well as access to
a career valued by society. The article
by Prof. Dr. Hannelore Schwedes
Universität Bremen, Germany has clearly identify key factors on
gender discrimination in education. His material for this research in extensive
and, in my view, read can be with the English educational system in mind.
However in England many young women have been successful in getting to
grip with what is commonly considered male subjects. They tend to get better
grade
results too. The involvement
of girls and women in education at all level is of prime importance
for a changed, informed and participatory role of decision-making in society.
