There are more girls enrolled in schools in Western and Central Africa than there were 10 or 20 years ago; however, increased access to education is not synonymous with access to high-quality, equitable education. Girls in Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DCR), and São Tomé & Príncipe (STP) experience gender inequality owing to gender norms, sex-based discrimination, and systemic barriers. In 2021, GPE KIX began funding research on gender norms in Burkina Faso, Chad, the DCR, and STP that could inform knowledge mobilization and capacity strengthening strategies to promote gender equality in schools. The research team unearthed disparities in girls’ access to education within the region and identified the extent to which inadequate financial resources, child marriage, and familial duties uphold gender inequality in each country context.
Outcomes
Improving knowledge on gender norms to promote gender equality in schools in Africa was foremost a research project. The lead institution, the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), explored innovations on gender equality and analyzed contextual factors that influence the integration of gender equality into education systems.
A family’s financial circumstance, the value they assign to education, and their attitude towards gender norms are the greatest determinants of whether a girl accesses education. Families with fewer financial resources cannot afford to send their children to school; however, families who can afford schooling but do not value education pose a significant obstacle to their daughters' education. Parents’ outsized influence on their children’s educational attainment raises a need to promote education within communities and encourage parents to send their daughters to school.
The project team’s discovery of country-specific attitudes towards gender norms enabled the project team to tailor recommendations to regional and national contexts. FAWE and the Research Laboratory on Economic and Social Transformation (LARTES) invited policymakers and local education stakeholders to attend workshops on challenges to education access. The workshops led to the creation of four diagnostic tools that found differences between policy documents and their implementation and highlighted a need to regularly collect disaggregated data on gender norms. Following these workshops, the project team created a visualization tool that displays insights drawn from primary, middle, and secondary school settings. This tool highlights where interventions are most needed to support girls’ education. For example, the tool visually represents that the rate of academic achievement among primary aged girls in the DRC declines by over half once they reach middle school, from 73% to 31%. This finding motivated educators and policymakers to deepen gender inclusion efforts when students transition between education levels.
FAWE and LARTES examined granular and overlooked aspects of girls’ educational attainment. They subsequently packaged the findings in accessible ways that appealed to policymakers and stakeholders. The relationship between the project team and local actors strengthened the response to the findings and increased the likelihood that girls will not only attend school but will also succeed and graduate.
Key research outputs
Explore a selection of the reports, case studies, and situation analyses completed by this project (in French):
- Improving knowledge of gender norms and understanding resistance to change to promote gender equality in education - Burkina Faso country report (in French)
- Improving knowledge of gender norms and understanding resistance to change to promote gender equality in education – Democratic Republic of Congo country report (in French)
- Improving knowledge of gender norms and understanding resistance to change to promote gender equality in education – São Tomé & Príncipe country report (in French)
- Improving knowledge of gender norms and understanding resistance to change to promote gender equality in education - Chad country report (in French)
- Gender norms and resistance to change in education in Africa: Cases of Burkina Faso, DRC, Sao Tomé and Principe and Chad (in French)
