| Article @ SandeshIndia | |
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| Headline : Women's Empowerment through Education |
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Dawood Mamoon
dawood@sdpi.org The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are often criticised on the basis of their idealistic targets. In this context some view MDGs as yet more capitalist rhetoric with the likes of the WTO and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Nevertheless, there is not much controversy over the stand the MDGs have taken regarding many urgent development issues. One such issue is women’s empowerment. The 3rd MDG has rightly acknowledged that the key to this goal lies in educating women: "Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015". Though the timeframe is arguably too strict, the goal is legitimate. Furthermore, Article 10 of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) specifically provides that “women shall not be discriminated against and shall have equal opportunities in the field of education.” Despite this recognition, education for women continues to be a low priority and remains under-funded in most countries in the South. Women and girls tend to receive fewer resources, less encouragement and little assistance in accessing their right to an education. Despite great emphasis among the intelligentsia and policy makers on the education of women, progress towards equal opportunities for the education for women in the South is still dismal. Who is to blame for the failure of this MDG which sought to empower women? Since the MDGs were primarily a Northern initiative, one probable answer is that MDGs were never followed up with the vigour and spirit in which they were proposed. Donor initiatives are still focused on pro-growth strategies and macro-economic stability in the South, and as an outcome at the governmental level in developing countries, only lip service is paid to the larger developmental agenda. As yet there is no significant policy in any of the developing countries which specifically caters to gender issues and women’s rights in general, although there are some notable exceptions in South Asia, such as Sri Lanka and the Indian state of Kerala. Women's education aside, developing countries even find it difficult to allocate sufficient resources to primary or secondary education as a whole. In most developing countries, funds are channelled to higher education, rather than to primary or secondary, in an attempt to increase the skilled labour force which is expected to bring significant international outsourcing from developed countries. Since education is already skewed and has a significant male bias in the South, the focus on higher education only exacerbates this male bias. Gender inequality in education leads to a bias in skill accumulation and therefore earnings in favour of men, particularly once (a) the Southern economies open up to international competition or (b) significant international outsourcing from North to South takes place. This has been the case in India and China where returns to skilled labour have increased primarily to the benefit of men amid international trade and outsourcing since most women in both countries are still uneducated and marketable skills are still male-dominated. As yet there is no sign of reversal of this situation in favour of women, despite a lot of government rhetoric articulated in the Southern media. The problem is that traditionally the trend in developing countries has been for policies to be pro-growth and market-oriented. Though at present most developing countries are channelling resources towards poverty alleviation, the old trends still prevail and undermine the wider developmental agenda in the name of macro-economic stability. The impression is that much of the talk of channelling resources to the development sector in the South is basically to satisfy donor demands: thus action is widely absent, especially in areas where the donors are less active. Gender equality in education is one such area. However for the anti-capitalist, pro-socialist lobbies the equation is much simpler. They find no surprise in the apparent failure of the development agenda of gender equality dictated by the North. According to them, the problem does not lie in the fact that women earn less than men on average, or that more women than men are uneducated - the real problem is the lack of economic security for the household as a singular unit in the wake of international competition and depletion of social capital and social safety nets. According to the pro-socialist stance, women have been exposed to the demands of capitalism, and are exploited because they are less equipped to benefit from the pro-market forces. The limitation faced by capitalism is that it does not distinguish between male and female, as all are labour. The increasing gender inequalities in education under a capitalist, pro-market oriented system have been an "indirect prophecy" of socialism, as it suggests that free markets further deepen existing inequalities between the haves and have-nots, as it is inherent to the capitalist system that major gains can only accrue to the powerful. Though the widening inequalities between various sections of the population in the contemporary global economic system has been widely accepted by proponents of the free market paradigm, they still believe in the efficacy of a trickle-down effect from the rich to the poor if a significant development strategy is in place. This is the essence of the PRSPs and the MDGs. However, the slow pace of progress in most areas of the development sector in many developing countries, as well as the persistent neglect of inequalities at the policy level in the South, have caused doubts about these strategies. What, then, is the way forward, specifically with respect to gender? The issue here is not only one of rights but also of choice. To get high quality education is the right of every individual, irrespective of gender, and it should be the free choice of women either to stay in the household or to work outside or to retain some combination of both. Socialism suggests that the household work done by women should be recognised as economic activity. However, this also means that socialism limits women’s choices by over-emphasising her role in household work. Actually, neither socialism nor capitalism has been able to accommodate free choice for women. If she wishes to, she can work in the market place or in the household as both should be considered ‘labour’ and it is her right to retain both options. Economic returns to education should not only be attributed to markets but also to household labour. Education is generally seen in monetary terms in the capitalist economic theory. However, the trend is changing, and the qualitative dividends of women’s education are increasingly discussed in development theory. Although research has shown that higher education among women leads to significant decreases in child mortality and fertility rates, mainstream economics still talks about education in terms of market skill value which accrues higher monetary dividends. This means that a woman who gains higher skills through education has only one option if she wants to gain monetary returns from her education and that is to enter the labour force. If she decides to stay at home, her choice would bring no monetary value as there is no ‘value added’ associated with household work. This paradigm is the prime cause of the apparent neglect of women’s education in the South where most women work in the household. Growth strategies will be seriously jeopardised if they do not prioritise the education of women. This can be done by finding direct linkages between women's education and processes of growth. In other words, if we could show that countries will benefit more from trade if their female populations are educated, policy makers would be more inclined to focus on women’s education. |