Treat girls and boys equally in education
Boys and girls deserve equal opportunities in education to develop their individual abilities in their careers of choice for their future success. However, some traditional and other challenges need to be addressed as gender equality is not just a human right, but is also a constitutional provision.
Nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religion or any other factors. These youth are equal and deserve fairness in access to education and skills training to develop each according to his or her ability.
In recent years, there has been an emphasis on promoting girl child education to redress to the old entrenched traditional biases in the patriarchal society. However, rising concern that boys could easily be left behind calls for a comprehensive approach that eliminates the old discrimination but does not create new problems.
A new study has laid bare some interesting disparities between boys and girls schools. An assessment of gender equality in the education sector has revealed that there are more boys out of school than girls. On average, boys were 1.2 per cent more likely to be out of school than girls.
The percentage of boys out of school was found to be much higher, at 10.4 per cent, in female-headed households. But the percentage of girls out of school was the same in both male- and female-headed homes.
The Gender Report, 2024 also indicates that 19 per cent of pre-school children and those of primary school age were out of school across the 47 counties.
A shocking finding is the favouritism towards boys secondary schools, which were more likely to offer computer lessons and have laboratories. Some 61.5 per cent of boys’ schools have chemistry labs compared to only 42 per cent for girls, disadvantaged by the latter. Boys schools also have more libraries (63.5 per cent) against 46.6 per cent for girls.
Another shocking finding is in health and safety, where boys’ secondary schools have more medical personnel. These findings call for redress. Gender equality should be enhanced for the success of both girls and boys by guaranteeing equal access to education and professional training.
