Gender and Democratization of Caribbean Education

Abstract

In the Commonwealth Caribbean, on average, girls start schooling earlier, attend school more regularly, repeat fewer grades, are less and achieve higher likely to drop out and therefore stay in school longer, standards of educational performance than boys. In the adult population more women are literate than men. Girls are more highly represented in those sections of the secondary and tertiary levels of the education system which enhance the prospects of upward social mobility. In a real sense girls and women constitute the first sex in Caribbean education. The Caribbean is one of the few areas of the world where this is the case. The data to support these assertions are not in question. They are routinely reported and confirmed by the annual education statistical reports of all the countries in the subregion. The issue at hand is their explanation.