5 pages paper about human development
Running head: PROMOTING EQUALITY IN AFRICAN SCHOOLS 1
PROMOTING EQUALITY IN AFRICAN SCHOOLS 8
Promoting Equality in African Schools
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Promoting Equality in African Schools
Introduction
The African continent faces a myriad of challenges. The challenges vary from one place to another but one specific challenge that's almost unified in the entire continent is the inequality seen in the girl child access to education. In most cases, the girl child has been neglected in ensuring that she gets equal opportunities in African schools. This is because girls have often found themselves being married off to their suitors at a tender age in exchange for cows and other material wealth. Besides that, the girl-child also faces challenges such as inadequate sanitary pads that would enable them to have an easy time in class during their monthly menses (Morrell, 2016). Therefore, this paper highlights the need to support the girl child in African schools and bring equality inaccessibility of studies between these two genders.
Description of the Case
There is a need to promote the development of African women in their continent. This can only be achieved by changing some perceptions about the role of women in this continent and the change of some important issues in society. Besides that, the change needs to be initiated among the girls who still have a long journey in their lives and thus huge impacts in society (Van Wyk, 2015). Therefore, I intend to empower the girl-child in the continent through the provision of equal opportunities for both genders in their schools, this is to make the girls also have the ability to compete favorably with the boys. In most cases, boys have been seen as important individuals in society that require to get an education while the girls get married or committed to home chores before being sent off to their suitors.
I believe that the promotion of the development of the African girl-child is the basic way in which the African continent can be transformed. There have been issues of gender-based violence in which women have been the victims due to the issue of overdependence and need to ensure that they are submissive to their husbands makes them suffer the brutality without raising an alarm (Becker, De Wet & Van Vollenhoven, 2015). As such, with equal opportunities being granted to these girls, there are chances that they will be equipped with the right kind of information and knowledge and hence making it easier to become financially independent and able to advocate for their rights. This would ultimately, later on, lead to reduced cases of inequality in the gender.
Besides that, girls can also be given equal opportunities as their counterparts through the provision of quality drinking water. This is an area in which most of the girls in this continent spend most of their time looking for quality drinking water for their families. Therefore, providing ways in which these girls would easily acquire quality drinking water this would mean that the girls have adequate time to study just like their male counterparts. This can be done by providing gutters for the harvesting of rainwater, digging of boreholes within the communities which would make water easily accessible among the community people.
The provision of quality water to these women in society would mean that they have been given a certificate for a better life. They usually spend much of their time to look for water in which they end up with dirty and dangerous water to their health and the health of their family members. Therefore, with water at their disposal, these girls would be able to spend the majority of their time in school which makes it equal with their male counterparts who spend most of their time in class.
Additionally, there is also the need to support the girls and the women in this continent by supporting them in terms of the provision of security measures. There are many instances in which women have been subjected to various ways of abuse, their cases of sexual assault, trafficking, child labor, and even child marriage (Van Wyk, 2015). Therefore, the provision of support by preventing such vices among these minors would automatically result in spending the majority of their time in class just as their male counterparts. In the end, they all have the required knowledge and skills to carry on with their daily activities thus making their lives even better.
It's important that or rather the girl-child in the African continent is given a chance to acquire education just like their male counterparts because of the benefits that come with empowering a woman. Empowering a woman is empowering the society, as such through the provision of these basic needs that ensure they waste their time it would culminate into the society being empowered by the women as they make the lives of the people in society better.
Application of the Concepts
Poverty is a key factor that plays a huge role in derailing the success of most of the girls in this society. In this case, the basic human needs in society cannot be met due to the unlimited resources in which these people are endowed with (Morrell, 2016). The situation is such that the community lacks some of the basic commodities such as water which is vital for the success and development of the community. There must be appropriate measures put in place to ensure that there is an effective provision of the services and products required.
The concept of poverty has a direct relation to the promotion of the development of equality among boys and girls in African society. Poverty has made it difficult for most of the families in Africa to access quality drinking water. As a result, this makes it an important concept in ensuring that there is empowering of such a society that does not have enough resources required to provide quality and healthy drinking water that would result in these girls spending the majority of their time in their studies. The concept matters to this study as elimination of poverty mean that these people would be able to acquire the necessary resources required in their lives thus making the lives of these girls easier and better.
Poverty in any society leads to struggling of the people that are found in such a society. The girls spend the majority of their time seeking water but only end up with dangerous and dirty water. Therefore, through the elimination of poverty, there is likely to be easy accessibility to water and other resources that most of the girls spend the majority of their time seeking to get to it. Therefore, through the provision of these services, there is equal opportunity for both genders to participate equally in education.
Besides that, there is also the concept of mindset. These are the beliefs that people have on issues such as intelligence and talent being fixed and cannot be changed at any time (Loots & Walker, 2016). The society is made to believe that certain chores and duties are inborn and once one is born of a certain gender he/she must always stick to the chores aligned to such gender. This concept relates to the issue of promoting the development of equality in African schools the society expects that the girls should always take care of their families rather than go to school. Therefore, their mindset is fixed on the girls needing to take care of these chores and nothing can be done to change the situation.
However, with the support and education on society, there is likely to be changed on the mindset that girls can also carry out other productive chores and need not waste their time looking for resources such as water rather than be in class to make their lives better. The change in mindset would ensure that society works towards ensuring the easy provision of commodities without necessarily involving the women and girls that would execute other duties. As a result, society is likely to be more productive and progressive.
Besides, another important concept is the theory of minds, which describes the ability of one to understand oneself and other people in their lives, their emotions, and needs (Morrell, 2016). In this paper the African society has perceived that the girl child has no other way but to seek for the resources used by the family, they spend most of their time looking for water rather than being in class shaping their destine, they lack basic commodities such as sanitary pads due to the theory of mind that majority of the people in the continent have set believing that it’s not a must that a girl child goes to school. This is an important concept as its management would ensure that society changes the poor perceptions that it has on its people.
Connection to Meta-theoretical Assumptions
The need to promote the development of girl-child in the African continent is also faced with assumptions that have been made on the girls. For instance, most of the commodities view girls as assets that would eventually leave their families and settle in another man`s home (Banks, 2015). Therefore, they use all means within their reach to ensure that they part their ways with her as early as possible in exchange for wealth. This makes it difficult for the empowerment of the girl child to be possible. This is because it's the people that take care of these girls, their guardians and parents that spearhead such operations. As such, there is a need for the change of this kind of mindset and the poverty level which also contributes towards such acts as parents view girls as sources of wealth.
Besides that, there is also the assumption that has been made on the capability of girls being productive in society (Becker, De Wet & Van Vollenhoven, 2015). It's assumed that girls cannot have huge impacts on society. As a result, they should be made to take care of their families, look for waters and execute other chores within their homes. However, this assumption has to be stopped for the African people to move ahead on the activities that engage in. This is because there are various ways in which successful ladies have been able to help their societies if given equal opportunities such as those given to the boys. Therefore, through equity, society has a high chance of being successful in various aspects.
Conclusion
Africa as a continent is lagging because of the mindset and the assumptions that the continent has made on their girl-child. Girls have not been given equal opportunities as their male counterparts. However, there are also cases of poverty which have contributed to the situation at hand. Therefore, there is a need for change, a change that would see the promotion of the development of equality in African schools with all children of both genders being given equal chances to acquire basic knowledge and skills required.
References
Becker, A., De Wet, A., & Van Vollenhoven, W. (2015). Human rights literacy: Moving towards rights-based education and transformative action through understandings of dignity, equality and freedom. South African Journal of Education, 35(2), 1044.
Loots, S., & Walker, M. (2016). A capabilities-based gender equality policy for higher education: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 17(2), 260-277.
Morrell, R. (2016). Making southern theory? Gender researchers in South Africa. Feminist Theory, 17(2), 191-209.
Van Wyk, S. B. (2015). " It’s hard work to be a girl": Adolescent girls’ experiences of girlhood in three low-income communities in South Africa (Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University).