Working Group on Female Participation

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Poverty, long-held negative attitudes about women’s intellectual capabilities, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, exam failure in mathematics and science and the traditional division of household labor are among the many factors that continue to keep vast numbers of girls out of the classroom in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite dramatic gains in enrollment over the past 30 years, the gender gap in access, attainment and achievement persists.

The statistics paint a grim portrait of the education of African women and girls. Nineteen sub-Saharan countries have a literacy rate for females below 30 percent, while corresponding rates for males are twice as high. Less than half of 6-11 year-old girls are estimated to be in school.

According to all available evidence, investment in female education in the low income countries of Africa is a “best bet” investment that simultaneously achieves greater earning ability for families, reduced fertility, reduced infant mortality and increased levels of public health. It is a regenerative process that produces continuing generations of children ready to learn and engage in behaviour supporting a wide range of development goals.

What is the Working Group on Female Participation?

Founded in 1990, ADEA’s Working Group on Female Participation (WGFP) is composed of African ministers of education, funding agencies, researchers, planners and African NGOs. Together, they seek effective ways to bring girls and women into the classroom. The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) serves as lead agency for the consortium.

What are the objectives of the Working Group?

The global objective of the working group is to help close the gender gap in African school enrollment, attainment and performance. This involves improving the understanding of sex differences in school participation in sub-Saharan Africa and of interventions that work. Only then can African decision-makers elaborate a coherent package of measures to equalize educational opportunity.

The working group’s strategy has been to identify and support collaborative efforts, which build the capacity of individuals and institutions, both private and public, to accelerate female participation in education.

What does the Working Group do?

The working group’s program consists of four components:

• The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE)
FAWE was born out of discussions of African women ministers of education and funding agencies within ADEA. Founded in 1992, the organization now comprises over forty African women cabinet ministers and other high-level educators who have joined forces to stimulate broad policy reform and create an environment conducive to educating women and girls. FAWE’s highly influential members give it enormous advocacy potential. Moreover, national chapters established in 31 countries have extended FAWE’s sphere of influence to the grassroots level.

FAWE’s achievements include: strategic resource planning projects providing governments with viable policy options in nine countries, national score cards to establish comparative benchmarks in FAWE countries, over 40 experimental seed-grant projects in over 20 countries, the Agathe Uwilingiyamana Prize awarding grassroots innovations in 10 countries, a pilot award for Media Excellence, the development of tools for gender analysis, a newsletter and a host of publications, films, tapes and booklets for mass distribution.

• Strengthening Girls’ Participation in Science and Mathematics: FEMSA
The Female Education in Mathematics and Science in Africa (FEMSA) program led by the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD) was created to better the performance of girls and young women in science math and technology (SMT) and to improve school curricula. Hosted by FAWE, the program has supported a series of country profiles by local researchers on access and achievement in science and math education. In Phase II, the participating countries are involved in making the necessary adjustments in curriculum teacher training and examinations, in collaboration with the ministries of education and policy makers. Another important objective is to develop innovative, interesting and girl-friendly approaches to the learning of SMT subjects. Twelve countries are participating in the second phase of FEMSA - Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

• The Partnership for Strategic Resource Planning in Africa (SRP)
This component stems from FAWE’S pilot studies of barriers to girls’ education and strategic resource planning in Ethiopia, Guinea and Tanzania. Building directly on previous studies of education sector resources planning, these studies attempt to show that cost-effective reforms are possible with existing education sector resources. More importantly, equity-oriented reallocations can reduce family costs, raise quality and influence parental demand for daughters’ schooling. Nine countries are participating in the SPR initiative : Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The partnership was created to ensure that country-level strategic resource planning work is expanded. It supports national resource allocation reviews, organizes sub-regional meetings to understand how countries currently approach the equity issue in resource allocation, and commissions comprehensive reviews of strategy resource allocation work in Africa. The activity is led jointly by FAWE and the World Bank Institute.

• Enlisting cooperation from NGOs: The Alliance
The Alliance for Community Action on Female education (the Alliance) was created to channel funding and other types of assistance to NGOs which are apt to forward female access to education. The Alliance’s goal is to ensure a healthy partnership between governments and NGOs in creating multiple channels for educational opportunity. UNICEF and an international steering committee of funding agencies oversee the initiative, while a nationally-based committee of education professionals will guide each country’s program. The Alliance has facilitated networking among local NGOs and CSOs and provided technical support through the provision of small grants.

Achievements

High-quality research output and a host of publications, established FAWE chapters in 31 countries, NGO engagement via the Alliance, FEMSA country profiles and programs in 12 countries, an Innovator Awards Program, national seminars on strategic resource planning in a growing number of countries influencing both policy and national and external education funding, a male minister’ alliance under FAWE on curbing adolescent pregnancy and school dropout are among the WGFP’s many achievements.

Working Group Publications

Click here for a list of reports of meetings and publications. Full text copies are available for selected publications and reports of meetings.

How to contact the Working Group

For more information, please write to:
Working Group Leader/Coordinator
Executive Director/ FAWE
Mrs. Penina MLAMA
P.O. Box 21394
00505 Ngong Road
Nairobi, KENYA
Tel: +254 20 387 31 31/33 51/33 59
Fax: +254 20 387 41 50
E-mail: pmlama@fawe.org
Web Site : www.fawe.org