Skip to main content

Context & pre-existing barriers to education for girls and women

Education is a right for all children and an educated population is essential for building a self-reliant, peaceful, equal, and inclusive Afghan society. Afghanistan’s education system has been severely impacted by decades of conflict, widespread poverty and humanitarian crisis. 

Today, funding remains insufficient, as only 3% of Afghanistan’s Gross Domestic Product is allocated to education. International standards state that the government should spend at least 4 to 6% of GDP on education. 

The Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4 recognizes that to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, least developed countries need to dedicate at least or more than 4 to 6%. 

Afghanistan budgets far less than this, and even with this small percentage of funding the country’s education budget continues to be underspent every year.Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations in the world, with almost half of the population (48 %) – under the age of 15, and 68% under 25 years of age. Women and girls’ education, has immense social and economic benefits for the development of countries. 

Education is a determinant of women’s engagement in the development of the country, public and social life. Afghanistan’s National Education Strategic Plan (2017 – 2021) acknowledges that investments in girls’ education to improve access and efficiency are necessary to ensure equality in access to education. 

Access to quality education is particularly critical in Afghanistan, where young people, especially girls, need education to prepare them as they try to break the country’s cycles of gender inequality, crisis, poverty and conflict, and move Afghanistan toward gender equality, peace and development.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Iran, Russia Discussing Joint Production Of COVID-19 Vaccine

Iran and Russia's sovereign wealth fund RDIF are discussing the joint production of a vaccine against COVID-19, Russian news agencies cited the Iranian ambassador to Moscow as saying on Friday. "We are holding talks, I spoke with the head of RDIF Kirill Dmitriev, our officials have held several rounds of consultations and we announced that we will co-operate," Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali was cited as saying. Thus far, Russia has struck a manufacturing partnership deal with India, which is due to produce 300 million doses of the 'Sputnik-V' vaccine domestically. It is also discussing such partnerships with several other countries, including Brazil.

Increased risks of drop out for women and girls : CoronaVirus Updates

The total number of children not returning to their education after the school closures is likely to be significant. The pandemic also risks jeopardizing some of the gains made since 2001 in re-building women and girls’ education following the Taliban regime.  The COVID-19 pandemic is creating additional barriers due to risks—and students’ and parents’ anxiety about risks—associated with children returning to classrooms that are cramped, with no capacity for distancing, often cold, damp and poorly ventilated during the country’s severe winters, and have no or poor hygiene and clean water facilities. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to drive many women and girls out of education permanently. School closures due to COVID-19, resulting increases in caregiving responsibilities for women and girls, and increases in poverty and unemployment will all make it harder for women and girls to study.  These factors combine in harmful ways with pre-existing discriminatory gender norms, o...

Russia's Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V available to public now: State media

First batches of Russia's Covid vaccine Sputnik V have entered "civil circulation" in capital Moscow, state media reported on Thursday. While details on the process were not immediately available, Russia has repeatedly stressed on producing the vaccine at the earliest, a belief met with international scepticism. Earlier this month, the Russian health ministry had said that batches of the Covid-19 vaccine were being produced for public distribution and would be supplied to different regions soon. "The first batch of the vaccine for preventing the novel coronavirus infection, Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V) developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Health Ministry passed the required quality tests in the laboratories of Roszdravnadzor (the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare) and was produced for civilian circulation. In the near future the supplies of the first batches of the vaccine to the regions are expected...