Schoolgirls

Australia urged to act on girls’ education in Solomons as 93 per cent dropout rate revealed

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Oceania/ Australia/ 10.06.2019/ Source: www.sbs.com.au.

Omar Dabbagh reports from Visale, Solomon Islands

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is being urged to prioritise education equality during his visit to the Solomon Islands, after a new report found a shockingly low number of girls finish high school in the Pacific nation.

Aid agency Plan International, which compiled the ‘Our Education, Our Future’ report with the help of 60 girls in the Solomons, found the female graduation rate there is only seven per cent.

Expensive school fees, disturbingly high rates of child marriage and teen pregnancies, dangers facing girls walking to and from school, as well as cultural perceptions towards gender are being blamed for mass female dropouts.

«I would say it’s discrimination but it’s also about opportunity. People think that girls are associated to home,» Ella Kauhue, Program Manager for Plan International Solomon Islands, told SBS News ahead of the report’s release next week.

«They do a lot of work at home, they save the family, they look after the children, so they have – in terms of family – they have responsibility more than the boys.

SBS News understands Mr Morrison will visit schools in the Solomon Islands on Monday and read to a class.

Solomon Islands girls

Australia is being urged to prioritise the education of girls in the Solomon Islands.
SBS News/Omar Dabbagh

‘Left behind’

«When it comes to the decision-making of parents on who to go to school when there is limited funds, then the boys have a chance to go, the girls are left behind,” said Franklin Kakate, a school principal in the village of Visale.

It is a domestic responsibility that many girls say they do not want.

Best friends, Betty and Betty, aged 18 and 19, dropped out of high school in recent years due to financial stress and peer pressure. And both say they are desperate to complete their education.

«I want to tell other girls that when they receive a good education, they will not be like us – you know, walking around (doing nothing). Boring. They will have a good life,» the girls said.

«I see value in education, so I want to see the girls value that because if they’re educated then they can see things.»

EXCLUSIVE: Australia urged to prioritise women's education in the Solomon Islands

Friends Betty and Betty were both forced to drop out of high school, and say they are desperate to one day graduate.
SBS News/Omar Dabbagh

Schoolgirls from Visale, north of the capital Honiara, have told SBS News they hope to one day break the mould in the Solomons.

«I feel excited because I have the opportunity to attend school while other girls stay at home and do housework,” says 18-year-old Melisa, who is in her last year of school.

«I want be in engineering because I want to be part of the male’s job, because in Solomon Island there’s not much female involved in men’s job.»

«(I want to be a) lawyer so I can solve all the problems in the country,» adds 17-year-old Clodina.

«I want to make our country a better country in the future.»

‘Gender imbalance’

In a bid to prioritise education in recent years, the Solomons government made primary school free. But Plan International claims that policy has not been implemented in many parts of the country. School attendance, both in primary and high school, is also not compulsory.

Seventy-two per cent of girls finish primary school, but as fees increase every of secondary school so too do dropout numbers, whereas one-third of boys are able to complete high school.

Plan International found that two out of five girls are forced to drop out of school due to teen pregnancy or child marriage, with the former seeing many girls expelled as they are often blamed for betraying customary practices.

Simple things like walking home, particularly in remote provinces, can deter girls from attending where there is a high rate of sexual assault.

Eighteen-year-old Judy says she used to walk six kilometres a day to and from her previous school and feared every day she would be attacked.

«I feel scared and maybe we don’t know what is going to happen when you follow the road, that there is no house and someone to help you,» she explained.

«And sometimes if you go to school by yourself and you meet someone who tried to kill you, you don’t have anyone to help you.»

ls for Australia to step up education focus

Australia is by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Solomon Islands, set to donate almost $200 million this year alone.

It bankrolls five per cent of the Solomons’ education budget, of which almost two-thirds funds scholarships and programs to improve school facilities, such as bathrooms and access to clean water.

But coordinator for International Programs at the Solomon Islands Ministry for Education, Christina Bakolo, told SBS News only a sliver goes towards secondary education, let alone the education of girls.

«There needs to be collaborative work if Australia would like to assist the Solomon Islands. For me, personally, there needs to be resourcing. This is one of the gaps here,» Ms Bakolo said.

«It would be very great to see Australia focusing on the marginalised ones in the Solomon Islands, and that includes girls.»

Plan International hopes Mr Morrison uses his overseas trip to take a stand to support young women.

«Gender equality in this country is very imbalanced,» Ms Kauhue said.

«I think the country, the government, will have to see that investing in girls is important and not for today but for the future of this country.»

Source of the notice: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-urged-to-act-on-girls-education-in-solomons-as-93-per-cent-dropout-rate-revealed

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Malala Yousafzai returns to Pakistan for first time in six years

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Pakistan/April 3, 2018/ by NEWS WIRES/Source: http://www.france24.com

Pakistan’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai on Saturday arrived in her hometown of Mingora for the first time since a Taliban militant shot her there in 2012 for advocating girls’ education.

Amid tight security, Youzafzai along with her parents landed in the Swat Valley in an army helicopter.

According to her uncle Mahmoodul Hassan, Yousafzai went to her home and also planned to meet with her friends and relatives. Security was visibly beefed up in Mingora the previous day.

The 20-year-old Yousafzai had asked authorities to allow her to go to Mingora and Shangla village in the Swat Valley, where a school has been built by her Malala Fund.

Hassan said Yousafzai and her family were not afraid of going to Swat, where Taliban militants wounded her six years ago.

«We are grateful to the government and the army for facilitating this visit,» he told The Associated Press.

In October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban assassin who jumped inside her school van and yelled, «Who is Malala?» She was targeted for speaking out on girls’ education.

Only 14 when she was shot, Yousafzai has since delighted in telling the Taliban that instead of silencing her, they have amplified her voice. She has also written a book, spoken at the United Nations and met with refugees.

On Friday, Yousafzai praised the Pakistan army in an interview on the independent Geo news channel for providing her timely medical treatment, saying her surgery was done by an army surgeon at the «right time.» She later received post-trauma treatment in Britain.

She said she would not have been sitting in Pakistan now if she had not been treated quickly. She plans to permanently return to Pakistan after completing her studies in Britain.

Schoolgirls in Yousafzai’s hometown were already jubilant over her arrival.

On Thursday, Yousafzai met with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at his office, where she also attended a gathering and made an emotional speech in which she said it was one of the happiest days of her life to be back in her country.

Yousafzai has won praise from across Pakistan on her return home, but some critics on social media have tried to undermine her efforts to promote girls’ education. Yousafzai says she failed to understand why educated people opposed her, although she could expect criticism from militants, who had a particular mindset.

She told Pakistani media that majority of Pakistanis supported her.

«Those who do criticize have absurd kind of criticism that doesn’t make any sense,» she said in an interview with Pakistan’s The News English-language newspaper published Saturday.

«What I want is people support my purpose of education and think about the daughters of Pakistan who need an education. Don’t think about me. I don’t want any favor or I don’t want everyone to accept me. All I care about is that they accept education as an issue,» she said.

Since her attack and recovery, Yousafzai has led the Malala Fund in which she said has invested $6 million for schools and books and uniforms for schoolchildren.

Yousafzai became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

In the interview, she said she was sitting in her classroom when news broke about her Nobel Prize and that she was not aware of it as she was not using her mobile phone at the time.

«My teacher came into my classroom and called me outside. I was worried that I might have done something wrong and I am in trouble. But she told me that I had won the Peace Prize. I said thank you. You don’t know how to respond. For me, it was for the cause of education,» she told the paper.

She said her trip to Pakistan was her college break as well. «That was also one of the reasons because I could not miss my school. So this just finally happened. To be honest, I can’t believe it that I am here in Pakistan. It still feels like a dream,» she said.

Yousafzai landed in Pakistan just before dawn Thursday, flanked by heavy security and plans to return to Britain on Monday.

Source:

http://www.france24.com/en/20180331-pakistan-nobel-prize-winner-malala-yousafzai-returns-home

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