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Gender Budgets Watch - Education
Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN)
March 29, 2004

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"Hands up for Girls' Education"
The worldwide numbers reveal shocking levels of inequality in education between girls and boys: 860 million adults cannot read or write, two-thirds of these are women says the Global Campaign for Education , an advocacy coalition of teachers and development workers seeking to ensure that the promise made by governments at the United Nations Millennium Summit to get equal numbers of girls and boys in school by the year 2005 is kept.

There is no doubt that closing the education gap between females and males by educating women and girls has direct developmental benefits and plays a key part in reducing poverty. With women making up half of the world's population, contributing two-thirds of all work hours and raising almost all of the world's children, the coalition's "Hands Up for Girls Education" slogan is right on track.

Research over the past 20 years has shown that education is an absolute prerequisite for progress on all fronts. Education is seen as one of the single most influential investments that the developing world can make. Providing women and girls, boys and men from especially poor families with appropriate and relevant primary, secondary and tertiary education has a multiplier effect. For example, women with more education delay their first sexual encounter, marry later than other women their age without education, want smaller families and are more likely to use contraception and other health care services.

Women without schooling are likely to bear twice as many children as women with 10 or more years of education do. The education equation looks like this:

GIRLS + EDUCATION= POVERTY REDUCTION = IMPROVED HEALTH= INCREASED LIFE EXPECTANCY = MONEY WELL SPENT.

Balancing the Books: Bearing Responsibility for Education in Zimbabwe
Education provision is mainly the responsibility of two separate ministries. The Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture ensures that there is primary and secondary schooling while the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education is responsible for tertiary, technical college and university level education.

On average, girls and boys in Zimbabwe enrol for their first year of school at the age of five. Primary school spans some seven years and secondary school lasts approximately four years for those who leave after completion of Ordinary level (O'Level) examinations. Those able to put in the further two years required for the Advanced (A' Level) spend a total of six years in high school. Entry into tertiary institutions can be from the age of about 16 onwards. Zimbabwe's average literacy rates for 1999 were 84% for females and 91.7% for males . Literacy levels decrease with an increase in age and level of education becoming lower for females than for males.

Education History
At Independence in 1980, Zimbabwe inherited an education system that was characterized by racial inequalities. White children of wealthy families predominantly enjoyed the most excellent academic, sporting and recreational facilities that opened their lives up to a future of advantaged choice. Segregation was also evident in the subjects taught, with schools designated for black and predominately poor children with poor facilities and a different curriculum altogether. Total expenditure on education for the black children was set at approximately 42% in a situation where there were only 56 000 Asian and white pupils compared to about 800 000 black pupils.

Government expenditure on the European child was thus 20 times as much as that for the black child. During this pre-independence period, there was a deliberate policy of ensuring that a very small percentage (12.5%) of those black children who managed to complete the primary school cycle had access to academic education at secondary level; 37.5% was to receive practically oriented secondary education while the remaining 50% were left with no access to education. Although the available statistics are not disaggregated by sex, fewer girls enrolled for primary and secondary education whilst a greater proportion of the 50% without access to education were girls because of the preference given to the education of the boy child due to socialization. Boys were then expected to find work as farm laborers and other menial jobs whilst girls were married off at very tender ages. Very few blacks let alone black girls could thus access skills training at the established skills training centers like Harare Polytechnic and even fewer could access university education.

This had created a legacy of double discrimination for black girls, particularly those from poor families i.e. discrimination on the basis of sex and discrimination on the basis of colour. The requirement to pay school fees meant that preference was given to the boys to attend school due to social and traditional practices that define women's roles as tied to domestic work and women being regarded as inferior to men especially in rural settings. Lobola (payment of cash or cattle as compensation to the father of the bride) is still a common practice which results in early marriages so that parents (the father) can acquire cash or cattle.

After independence, the government of Zimbabwe introduced free education for all children of primary school-going age. The right to education was offered as a fundamental basic human right and was seen as an attempt to correct the scales that had been racially tipped in favour of non-black children prior to independence. "Education for all by the year 2000" became the buzz phrase of Zimbabwe's post independence era. To achieve this goal, government built schools in remote and disadvantaged areas and tried to shrink the walking distances between home and school to ensure that girls and boys, unable to attend class previously because of the long distance, could now go to school.

The free education for all policy scored high marks. The Government of Zimbabwe in the early 1980s initiated a reconstruction exercise that saw the establishment of several primary and secondary schools in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. The number of primary schools increased from 2401 in 1979 to 4234 by 1985 and 4723 in 1999. At Secondary level, the number of schools went up from 177 in 1979 to 1215 in 1985 and to 1548 in 1999.There was a sharp increase in school enrolment at both primary and secondary levels for girls and boys. The Education Statistics Report of July 1998 produced by the Central Statistics Office, shows that about 3 million people aged 5 to 20 were enrolled in the primary and secondary schools alone in 1990. By 1994 the figure had risen to 3.16 million. The statistics are not disaggregated by sex to show how this increase reflects the different enrolments of girls and boys.

The enrolment levels for boys and girls over the period 1990 to 2000 have increased steadily with very small differences between female and male enrolments and almost reaching parity in 2000 at both primary and secondary level. Part of the increase in enrolments can also be attributed to the overall increase in the population. It is very interesting that the percentages for the primary and secondary are similar, as in most countries there will be a better gender balance at primary than secondary school.

Education for all might seem to be a straightforward goal but it has met its challenges that made it difficult to be achieved. The introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) had a significant negative impact on enrolments with less girls enrolling between 1992 and 1994 and fewer boys also enrolling during the same period. Most households could not afford to send their children to school during government's cost recovery programme. Girls were affected more than boys. At secondary level the gender gap that had been partially closed in 2000 when parity was almost achieved is widening again due to the current economic hardships being faced by the country.

Under ESAP, cost recovery was introduced in urban areas while in rural areas development levies were raised. Cost recovery meant that parents had to pay small amounts of school fees for administrative purposes and development levies are amounts of money paid for the development of the school. Although expenditure on education as proportion of the gross national product (GNP) increased from 2% in 1980 to 7% in 1990 and slightly fell to 6.3% (education statistics July 1998), the introduction of cost recovery had negative impact on school enrolment.

According to the 1992 census report, 17% of the school going age population had never been to school, 49% had left school and 34% were still at school. Of those that had never been to school 60% were females and 40% male and of those who had left school 51% were females. However in rural areas there is an even bigger discrepancy as 53% of the population in schools are males versus a 47% for females. If these figures are extrapolated to the present years the situation is the same in both rural and urban areas. In the light of the above, government policy must be directed towards addressing the gender gaps that impede girls from enrolling and staying in school.

Member states are obliged to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in order to ensure equal rights with men in the field of education on a basis of equality between women and men by providing conditions that allow equal access to vocational training, same curricula, adult literacy programmes, reduction in female drop out rates and equal access to sports and physical education, says the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) signed by Zimbabwe in 1991 but not yet domesticated into national law.