Women’s Education and Social Development in Africa

Abstract

Much has been written about the role of education as an important prerequisite for social development. Although there are competing claims to the contrary, there is indeed compelling evidence that mass education accelerated industrial revolution in much of the developed West. Following the same logic, postcolonial social policies in Africa and other less developed parts of the world have been premised on the assumption that there is an interdependence between education and social development. But, despite this recognition and massive educational expansions in the region over the last several decades, women’s equal access to education is at best, ideational. An analysis of UNESCO’s (2000) World Education Report, shows that while significant gains were made in school enrollments in Africa, women continue to trail behind men, with few exceptions, at all levels of education (see table 8.1). But, beyond disparities in educational enrollments and asymmetrical access to social rewards per se, women’s education is of critical value to society in very important ways.KeywordsSocial DevelopmentHuman Development IndexAfrican WomanSocial ProgressWoman EntrepreneurThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.