Photo: Foundation for Inclusive Community Help
guest column
By Emmanuel Otoo
Foundation for Inclusive Community Help, a rural
grassroots organization in Uganda, provides support for formal and
informal education and promotes job creation for youth.
Education
is so much more than an opportunity to go to school; it is an
opportunity to determine one’s future, to establish a voice within and
outside of one’s community, and to dream beyond the limits of one’s
circumstances.
Education has the
capacity to lift people out of poverty and to interrupt
intergenerational poverty by equipping children and youth with the
skills needed to obtain employment and command higher wages (Haveman and
Wolfe, 2001; Huisman and Smits, 2009; Post, 2002).
Education also
brings with it countless social benefits, such as an improvement in
self-esteem, knowledge about one’s environment, and information on how
to make a difference and how to practice a healthy lifestyle.
While education is
beneficial for all children, educating girls is particularly important.
According to the World Bank 2016, quality education helps girls to find
their voice—to “speak and be listened to.” Educating vulnerable girls in
marginalized communities and rural areas also leads to a reduction in
child marriage, teen pregnancy, at-risk behaviors, female genital
cutting, and violence against women and girls. When girls are educated,
cycles of gender bias against girls and women are effectively disrupted.
Furthermore, the Global Education Monitoring Report 2016 found
that when educated girls become mothers, they are more likely to seek
consistent prenatal care for themselves and immunizations and other
medical care for their young children, passing the benefits of education
on to the next generation. When girls are educated, they are better
equipped to lift up themselves, their families, and their communities.
Although the
importance of girls’ education is widely acknowledged, access to quality
education is still beyond the reach of too many girls. Across Africa,
several reasons account for this situation, including forced child labor
and marriage. Various explanations have been given for why families
choose to marry off their girls or send them to work instead of to
school. Scholars suggest that a lower financial return on investing in
girls’ education poverty, low school quality, and religious values and
patriarchal norms all contribute to this problem.
The question is,
how can we ensure that girls receive the education they deserve to help
dismantle the structures of poverty and enhance societal well-being?
More than that, how can we ensure that girls receive a quality education
in a girl-friendly environment, develop their own voice, are
consistently engaged, and feel safe from harm? At the grassroots level,
this means identifying which practices are transformative in girls’
education; which practices deserve our full exploration and dedication;
and how we can move away from responding to the symptoms of a lack of
quality education and focus on addressing root causes. As a believer in
the game-changing efforts of grassroots initiatives, I will share a few
ideas in that direction.
To achieve the
United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4—“ensure inclusive and
equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities
for all”—holistic, innovative, and gender-sensitive approaches are
critical. Grassroots education strategies that are woven into the fabric
of communities and facilitate self-sustainable development demonstrate
promising results, especially when it comes to reaching the most
vulnerable girls and ensuring access to education, retention in school,
effective learning, and advancement to the next grade level.
Comments
Post a Comment