Girls & women's forum calls for review of educatio...

Girls & women's forum calls for review of education policy to incorporate the young

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Audrey Galawu

Adolescent Girls and Women Rights Forum has called for action from government, civil society and policy makers to take solid steps towards ensuring that education is given to children as well as improving adolescent girls’ engagement in education.

This comes as the World celebrates the International Education Day as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in celebration of the role of education in peace and development.

The fifth International Education Day is being celebrated under the theme: “To invest in people, prioritise education.”

The purpose is to strengthen and prioritise education as millions of adolescent girls are out of school despite the fact that persons of the female gender make up more than two-thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate people according to United Nations Women.

According to AGWRF, before the pandemic, 21% of the Zimbabwean youth were not in school and as of April 2022 the number increased to 47%.

“Youth, children and adolescent girls’ right to education is being and has been violated hence the need to transform education.

“Without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all, the world will not achieve Sustainable Development Goal Number 4 which speaks to “Quality education”, Sustainable Development Goal 5 “Gender Equality” and breaking the cycle of poverty that is leaving a number of women and children behind,” AGWRF said.

The organisation also said while advocacy groups are working with communities to reduce child marriages and sexual violence towards children, there is still a high number of child marriages and cases of sexual violence towards children being recorded.

Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency in 2022 reported that 18,2% of the school going population aged between 4-24 years dropped out of school due to marriage or pregnancy related reasons.