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Home > Articles > An Education in Making Schools Safe An Education in Making Schools SafeBy Charlotte Feldman-Jacobs (January 2006) To promote gender equality and empower women, girls must stay in school. It is, in fact, the third goal of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG): "Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015."1 But what if it isn't that simple, what if by sending girls into schools you are actually exposing them to violence and victimization, to bullying, rape, and molestation by classmates and even by teachers? That is the conundrum faced by the Safe Schools Program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Office of Women in Development. "How do we make the classroom an environment with healthy interactions among students, among teachers, and between teachers and students?" asks Maryce Ramsey, director of the Safe Schools Program. It is this question that drives the pilot program examining gender-based violence in schools in Malawi and Ghana.2 Education Is KeyEducation has long been credited with unlocking doors for girls in developing countries. The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1994, recognized education as an essential means of empowering women and girls, and as a way to strengthen families and communities. Educated girls and women are known to improve their livelihoods, marry later, and make informed choices about the number and spacing of their children. At the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, governments pledged to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005. Yet, more than 40 percent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education,3 and gender parity in education remains a distant prospect in more than 50 countries worldwide.4 The poorest countries and those with a strong cultural preference for boys tend to have the greatest gender inequalities at school. Other factors inhibiting gender parity include early marriage, HIV/AIDS, and violence in schools. According to a literature review of gender-based violence in developing countries, gender-based violence affects not only enrollment, but retention and the educational experience of girls also.5 Identifying the ViolenceFor girls in many countries, demoralizing physical and psychological abuse often begins at home, is reinforced in the community, and continues in the classroom. Violence at school may include bullying, harassment, excessive corporal punishment, and sexual abuse. Gender-based violence at school or in the wider community spreads under cover of silence and fear. Girls' vulnerability to physical, sexual, and psychological abuse reflects the low value society often places on them. But just how to root out acts of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse that stem from inequalities between women and men and deeply entrenched attitudes and norms is a complex question. The problem is further complicated in many communities by families' limited choices, inadequate learning facilities, poor teacher quality, and other symptoms of poverty. By assessing the causes of violence in schools and its prevalence, the Safe Schools program hopes to arrive at best approaches to ending the problem. It is piloting its work on reducing gender-based violence in schools in Ghana and Malawi, two countries where the difference in literacy and school enrollment between males and females is quite marked. In 2000, the literacy rate for females in Ghana was 63 percent to 83 percent for males, while in Malawi it was 47 percent for females and 75 percent for males.6 Girls also appear to be "dropping out" of school in higher numbers. In Ghana, primary school enrollment for boys and girls is about equal but by the time they reach secondary school, 41 percent of males are enrolled compared to 34 percent of females. In Malawi, the situation is similar, with the ratio by secondary school reaching 39 percent of boys to 29 percent of girls. Safe Schools in Ghana and MalawiGhana was the first country to be visited by the Safe Schools' team of USAID gender and education experts in January 2004. The team conducted an assessment on how schools are welcoming or unwelcoming environments for students and teachers, and what kind of behavior makes girl and boy students uncomfortable to the point that they may not want to return. They visited schools in Accra, and eastern and northern Ghana. The team interviewed teachers, officials from the Ghana Education Service, NGOs working in education, legal rights, and HIV/AIDS prevention, the teachers' union, the Federation of Parents, and many other organizations about their approach to addressing school-related gender-based violence. The early results from the baseline survey in Ghana (of 6,106 students) are eye opening.7
These numbers are not out of line with other reports of gender-based violence. According to the World Health Organization, in some countries, up to one-third of adolescent girls report their first sexual experience as being forced.8 Girls are fondled, verbally degraded, or raped in toilets, dormitories, empty classrooms, or as they walk to and from school. The perpetrators are often people perceived to be in positions of power, including teachers, community figures, or older and bigger students. In addition, families may make decisions that compromise the safety and health of their daughters. In a 1996 study of several villages in Ghana, seven out of 10 mothers said they encouraged their adolescent daughters to have premarital sexual relationships. With men controlling financial resources and economic power, many young women rely on their support.9 Some girls get older men or "sugar daddies" to pay their school fees in return for sexual favors—a practice that often leads to pregnancy and school dropouts among girls. In Malawi, one of the world's poorest and most rural countries, where per capita income is just $170 per year and 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line,10 the Safe Schools Program found that economic need led to high-risk decisions. "Parents will send a daughter to her teacher's house at night to take him vegetables, knowing that the teacher will force the child to have sex," notes the Program's report, an assessment based on data collection, interviews, and focus groups. "The parents hope that either the teacher will marry the daughter or they will be financially compensated for the service."11 Such sexual violations can have lasting consequences for the reproductive health of girls. The costs include psychological scars, unwanted pregnancies, exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, physical injury, and trauma. With an estimated 14 percent of adults in Malawi infected with HIV, sexual abuse can lead to infection with the virus.12 Creating Safe SchoolsThe Safe Schools Program advocates a multi-layered, ecologic approach working from the individual level to the national one, engaging students and the community along with the education, health, gender, and legal sectors. The approach places an emphasis on sharpening legislation; developing codes of conduct for teachers; examining entrenched attitudes of parents and teachers and girls and boys; and developing referral and support systems. The Program proposes three main types of intervention:
Looking AheadIn general, safe school initiatives in developing countries reflect a variety of approaches to confronting the problem. They include reviewing curricula materials, training teachers, involving the community, and developing appropriate policies. No matter what their focus, many programs are geared toward involving young people either through youth leadership activities or through materials that educate girls and boys about sexual health and about the power imbalances between women and men that underlie the violence. Involving both girls and boys is seen as central to preventing the violence. While much of the reporting on gender-based violence at schools centers on girls' experiences, boys may be targets of this violence as well as perpetrators, the victims themselves of bullying and other abuses. But information about boys' roles is inadequate, a situation that gender experts would like to remedy. According to Julie Hanson Swanson of USAID's Office of Women in Development and the Technical Officer for the Safe Schools Program, "Even though the concern for girls is the entry point to the issue, the solution has to include boys—how they relate to each other and to girls." The Safe Schools Program proposes looking at boys and men "not simply as perpetrators of violence or as strategies for improving girls' lives, but rather, as partners with girls and subjects of rights."13 The Safe Schools Program has already chosen 40 schools in each country for the pilot programs, 30 of them as interventions and 10 as controls. It is the goal of the program that, in the end, not only will there be more girls staying in the classroom, but that the education girls and boys receive will be more gender equitable, transforming how boys and girls and men and women view themselves and each other. The transformation, it is hoped, will reach beyond the classroom into the communities themselves. The Safe Schools Program is funded by the Office of Women in Development in USAID's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade. This article was written by Charlotte Feldman-Jacobs and Yvette Collymore of the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) for the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG). It was funded by the Global Health Bureau of USAID and produced in collaboration with the Office of Women in Development, an IGWG partner. For more information, contact:
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