Education and health

Women participating a self-esteem workshop in Huaycán, Peru.

Education is considered to be the most powerful tool in reducing poverty, gender inequality and unequal social structures in the world. Education empowers and offers people tools for a brighter future. Education gives hope and helps people to live in peace with each other. Education is especially considered to have a greater influence amongst women as educating a girl or a woman can mean educating the whole village, reducing illnesses, child mortality rates and increasing participation in the society. No one can deny the great influence that education has got in people’s health and quality of life. However, there is also a lot of discussion that education should be culture sensitive, that the same western models should not be directly adapted to other continents, and that education should not only mean literacy and numeracy, since it can be quite a limited perspective to education. I think that non-formal education is also something that should also be seriously considered in developing processes, given that for many people living in developing countries it might be more accessible than the formal education. Non-formal education is many times offered by non-profits and NGO’s and which include in their educational policies the real needs of the individuals, when the formal education is many times strictly tied with the national policies. Nevertheless, also the formal education has immense influence on the individuals and nations wellbeing, at least when it is accessible for everybody. The table that I am going to analyse is based on the formal education process; the primary/secondary school attendance and literacy rates. (UNICEF 2008a).

Women participating a self-esteem workshop in Huaycán, Peru.

I also choose to do my analyse by exploring the differences within countries of each continent, since I think that because of the local realities; because of the historical, social and cultural reasons it’s more meaningful to analyse the table between countries that share similar kind of reality than for instance an African country compared with a country from another continent. I will not be able to analyse all the countries, so I choose just few countries and write about them briefly. In order to make some limitations I will also leave out the so called "North" and consentrate more on the "Southern" countries. However, I do not deny that there would be many things to improve in Europe or in the USA.

Asia

Asia shares such disparities within the continent that it makes it quite difficult to understand the differences in the access of education. On the other hand the differences can also help in explaining the varieties; some of these varieties can be ethnical, cultural, religious or political ones. In the table the first country is Afghanistan which of course shows very large gender inequality. Only 51% of the boys are literate, but the number of girls is shockingly low: 18%. In the case of Afghanistan the Taleban regime oppresses women very strongly and the rates can be explained by that. On the other hand Bangladesh doesn’t show such inequality between the boys and girls, even if it considered being one of the poorest countries of the world. However, the rates in general are low. China is a country with a strong economy and military power, at the same time the freedom of speech is very limited. Independently of that, the literacy and schooling rates are very good and show very little difference between men and women. Surprising after the education rates the number of internet users is very low, even if it could be explained by the lack of freedom of speech which is controlled by the nation. Nepal has a large difference between the genders and women’s literacy rate in 20% lower then men’s. In the last years there has been, however, positive change in under-five mortality rates, infant mortality rates and in reproductive health as a result of education process. (Unicef, 2010.) India in general shows quite a good young male literacy rates, but also there girls have a lot less access to education. India has got the fastest growing population in the world, so educating girls would be extremely important for the future. However, it seems difficult (but not impossible) to brake the tradition of the importance of the male in the society.

Latin America

Latin America is known for male chauvinism, discrimination against the indigenous populations and for the very large gap between the rich and the poor. Despite of that, some of the countries share almost the same living standards as the countries of the “North” (Chile being one example of that). Guatemala and Bolivia are one of the poorest countries in Latin America, but still the literacy rates seem to be fairly high. Guatemala has the biggest gap between the male and female literacy rates and in all the lowest of Latin America. Surprisingly, the disparity between the girls and boys does not show in the overall rates of the continent. However, the internet user rates seem to be fairly low compared to the literacy rates that is because many people just not have a possibility to use it or does not know how to do it. Guatemala and Bolivia also have the highest indigenous populations among the Latin American countries and that causes difficulties in the schooling process. The indigenous languages are often not taken into consideration in the formal school system; the children need to study in their second language and that may also lead into loosing their traditional culture and being ashamed of their roots. There is also another thing to take into consideration; as I mentioned before we should not only watch the literacy rates and the statistics, but also the quality of the education. In many countries which have high rates, the quality is still lacking and the disparities between the social classes are large. In Peru, for example, the literacy rates are high for both genders, but according the Worldfund in year 2007 Peru’s educational system was ranked 133rd out of 134 countries. Peru also spends less than three percent of its GDP on education and many of the teachers are not qualified. (Wordfund, 2010.)

Africa

According to the table Africa is the continent that in overall has the lowest rates in literacy, schooling and internet and mobile phone usage. Nonetheless, the difference between the Northern Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa is very large. As we all know Sub-Saharan Africa is many times referred as the area which most needs action in fighting the poverty, hunger and inequality. Many African countries gained their independence much later than many of the other colonized nations and has the continent suffered decades of wars, political restlessness and exploitation as ex-colonies of European countries. Not to mention the challenge of fighting the present HIV/Aids epidemic. Among the Sub-Saharan Africa Zimbabwe and South-Africa seem to have the highest literacy rates and almost no difference between the men and the women; however, compared to many other countries the use of mobile phone seems to be much higher in South Africa. The literacy rates are very low in Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia (etc.) and also the access to education between boys and girls is extremely high. In some countries as Ethiopia the reason not to go to school for many children can be the infrastructure or the income of the family: the schools can be very far away and parents need their children to work for the living. Nevertheless, the gender issue is to be taken seriously and cannot only be explained by cultural issues. Uganda is often mentioned as an example of developing their school system. In year 1996 the president decided to remove the primary school fees for up to four children of one family (amongst them two were aught be girls). This is how the key obstacle was removed and the families were sent an important message. Since then the primary school attendance has increased by 20%, even if the attendance of the girls is still 10% lower. However, at the same time the quality of the education has suffered. (The World Bank, 2002.)

Pictures by Chascona


Sources:

• Worldfund 2010. URL: http://www.worldfund.org/Peru.html
• The World Bank 2002. URL: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/Education-Notes/EduNotesUganda.pdf
• UNICEF 2010. URL: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nepal_nepal_statistics.html
• UNICEF 2008. URL: http://www.unicef.org/sowc08/docs/sowc08_table_5.pdf 
• UNICEF 2008. Basic education and gender equality.
• - Education for all
• - The big picture
• The World Bank 2008. Education and Development.
• The World Bank 2008. Girls' education.