Gender Equity in Education

What is gender? The proper gender definition that keeps up with the times is identifying people as male, female, or non-binary, the last category being those that do not identify as male or female. Most non-binary people prefer ‘they and their’ for pronouns. 

The next step would be defining equity and equality in education. Gender equity ensures fair treatment of all genders and debunks myths and stereotypes about those who identify differently. Equality ensures that all students are empowered equally and their human rights respected.

Poverty and Intersecting Inequalities

Poverty plays an important role in educational inequality in these and more ways:

Teacher-Student Ratio

Schools in high-poverty districts or countries have fewer teachers and resources, so students there cannot get the same quality of education as those with optimal teacher-student ratios and resources. If you read online gender equality essay samples, the few teachers available at these poverty-stricken schools can only do so much for their many students. If the quality of education is not the same, these various groups can never fully compete. Enough published essay examples show this to be true. 

Health and Lack of Food

Poor health makes students drop out as you cannot keep studying while sick. Poverty leads to a lack of proper diets, exposing the body to illness and weakness. One misses classes for several days and eventually may drop out, advancing these inequalities. Girls are, in some communities, also likely to drop out of school when they start their menses without proper sanitary products for protection. 

Resources

When schools in poor parts of the country or the world get a disproportionate distribution of resources, they cannot afford to hire or keep qualified teachers. There is also an expected higher job turnover since these educators are always looking for greener pastures. Vital subjects are cut out because the budgets cannot cover them, so these students will always be lagging in education and physical activities. 

What About Boys/Girls?

In some communities, a boy is deemed more valuable to society than a girl, so a male student is more likely to stay at school than her female counterpart. If there is only enough money to educate one child, such parents are more likely to choose the boy than the girl due to cultural practices and beliefs. 

Other inequalities happen subtly, like girls being made more aware of their feminity than the boys at school. Girls are more likely to get feedback based on their looks and personalities than on their educational performance, and teachers are seen to focus too much on asking girls to be careful of how they act around boys. In contrast, boys do not get the same education. 

Addressing the Weight of Social Gender Norms

College changes a lot of things as most women are now grown and more aware of their power, but there are still incidences of inequality that need to be worked out. Growing up, girls are more likely to be asked to help out in the kitchen while the boys play, which cements a ‘woman’s place’ in most kids’ minds. Some educators recklessly advise girls to take the less complicated subjects as they are better at administration, which leads to fewer of them taking on managerial roles. 

Gender roles deny many women chances at a good education, health, and promotion at work, leading them to conform to the life they are handed. Enough cases of gender-based violence show many women stay in broken relationships and marriages because they cannot sustain their lifestyles without their abusive spouses. The best time to start addressing these issues is when the kids are still very young, so they know they can be anything they want without the constraints placed on them by society. 

Is it Important to Plan Gender-Responsive Education?

If inequalities in education are to be addressed once and for all, gender-responsive education is vital, from the lower rungs to the university. It starts by removing the barriers that prevent some genders from accessing the quality of education they require to allow them to compete with the other gender. One thing that needs to happen is removing barriers that make it hard or impossible for girls to study or work in science. Also, from a young age, all genders should start being made aware of their mental and physical abilities.  

Conclusion

Take the time to read an essay on education inequality if what we discussed here is not relatable. The cause of this inequality is most times due to insecurities that some sections of the world have placed on themselves. For instance, some men are naturally threatened by empowered women, so they prefer to keep them suppressed. Others believe girls to be less intelligent or not built for mental strain, so they choose to educate the boys who, in their opinion, are born leaders.