The 59th session of the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW59) that took place in New York from 9 to 21 March aimed at reviewing the progress made on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action 20 years on. It also looked at the linkages between Beijing + 20 and the Post 2015 Development Framework.
During CSW59, education has been broadly recognized as a driving power for girls’ and women’s empowerment. But what shape should the post-2015 agenda, and the education goals in particular, take to ensure societies across the world eliminate the injustice of gender inequality?
Education and training form one of the 12 priority areas for the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. As recalled by Patience Stephens, UN Women Special Adviser on Education, when speaking at a side event on Rallying to End Gender-based Violence in Schools, Beijing called for strategic action to redress “inequalities and inadequacies in and unequal access to education and training.”
In the years since 1995, the consensus on the importance of education for girls and women has only grown stronger, a shared position with widespread support in CSW59 and the post-2015 agenda that must be sustained.
The charge of Beijing on education was two-fold: to focus on inequalities of access and inadequacies in education. Through the Millennium Development Goals, we have seen a significant closing of the gap between boys’ and girls’ access to primary schools. But the issue of quality education remained largely unheeded – a quality education for all and an equal playing field for girls remaining distant realities. Moreover, despite the progress on access, if recent trends continue, universal primary completion in sub-Saharan Africa will only be achieved in 2086 for the poorest girls.
This remains a critical issue most acutely for girls. When girls reach adolescence, they drop-out of school at rates far greater than boys. Early marriage arrangements, school fees or the perceived social opportunity cost of a girl being away from the home serve as barriers to adolescent girls expanding their education into secondary schools and beyond.
Beyond gender parity
These persisting barriers make gender equality a key challenge for the post-2015 agenda. Gender parity says nothing about the quality of learning, the shifts in opportunities available to or the social perceptions of girls and women, or how a girl feels when she’s able to contribute to her community’s development.
Education is no panacea. As the Philippines organized panel on Institutionalizing Gender Equality in Education: Policy Initiatives and Best Practices in Asia recognized, education can reinforce negative gender norms. Yet as the panel concluded: education can also transform norms. What makes the defining difference is the quality of education--an education platform that transforms how girls and women are seen in relation to boys and men in their societies. The panel emphasized three core components of gender transformative girls’ education, namely: feminist orientation; empowerment of girls; and going beyond stereotypes and traditional goals for girls.
Towards a gender transformative post-2015 agenda
This perspective echoes well with CARE’s work with communities and schools. In countries as different as Yemen, Peru, Tanzania and Egypt, CARE is working with schools to reach girls, their families and communities to develop girls’ leadership skills and change underlying gender norms, building a supportive environment for girls. The results indicate not only an improvement on learning outcomes, but also positive change in girls’ status at home and in their communities.
For the first time in many of these communities, girls are participating in civic action, their voices are being heard and their needs are being supported. And, most importantly, families feel pride in their achievements and acknowledge the importance of their contribution.
During CSW59, the gender transformative agenda particularly resonated through the voice of 15 year old Emelin Cabrera, who spoke of her efforts to lead change in her community to improve her school’s activities for adolescent girls. Emelin lives in a rural community in Guatemala, scarcely connected to roads. She spoke of boys bullying girls and a patriarchal norm that informed the local male mayor’s initial refusal to support after-school activities for girls. It wasn’t until Emelin and her peers recruited the mayor’s own teenage daughter that he was able to put himself in their shoes – and changed the school’s activities.
Accountability to empowerment
In the Post 2015 negotiations, Member States still need to discuss how themselves, donors, NGOs and civil society will hold each other accountable on achieving the goals. What must be negotiated is not only accountability, trends and indicators of whatever final language will be agreed upon; but how progress on the goals will be measured and how they will impact those to whom they matter most: marginalized communities, especially girls and women as often the most marginalized within these communities.
Among a range of promising initiatives, the CSW59 Round table on National mechanisms for gender equality heard the call to ensure accountability to gender equality through the use of digital tools and emerging technologies – including new games accessible by all children and adolescents. Moving from parachuting laptops into remote villages to defining how technology can complement efforts for accountability and empowerment is a major next step.
As member States are undergoing the last phase of the the post-2015 agenda negotiations, they must recognize the key dimensions of education, as underscored during CSW59. quality education can transform gender norms and empower girls and women. And through the measure of empowerment, the post-2015 framework has a cornerstone for ensuring accountability to girls and women who too-often represent the most marginalized in any society.
We are all accountable to Emelin and millions of girls in the world for whom access and quality education will be the key lift out of poverty.
Contact Person: Christopher Kuonqui: [email protected]