The theme of this year’s International Youth Day, “transforming education,” reminds us how important it is for all boys and girls to have access to education. In Africa, young women are over 1.5 times less likely than young men to be formally employed or undergoing education or training. Unequal access to educational opportunities, early marriage rates among young women, and responsibilities for unpaid care and housework are some of the factors contributing to this disparity.
Here we draw on the findings of the recent report on The Skills Balancing Act in Sub-Saharan Africa : Investing in Skills for Productivity, Inclusivity, and Adaptability and on data from the World Bank Gender Data Portal to present five facts about young women in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in the region.
1. The school-to-work transition is hard for many African youth, particularly for young women.
2. Formal TVET is small in Sub-Saharan Africa, and women are less likely than men to participate.
The region clearly lags others: the share of male and female students in secondary education enrolled in vocational programs is 6.4 and 5.2%, respectively. In contrast, the share in Latin America is 12% for young men and 13% for young women and in the Middle East and North Africa the rates are 14 and 9%, respectively.
3. Gender gaps in TVET tend to be wider in larger systems.
4. Women are less likely than men to study STEM careers.
Way forward
As highlighted in the Africa regional skills report, TVET for TVET’s sake is, of course, not the objective. There are many challenges, but also opportunities to improve the quality and relevance of TVET in the region. While TVET seems to pay off for youth who reach this education stage, but who would not otherwise benefit from a university education (where there is large variation in returns), without improvements in quality its impact is limited.
A major challenge for TVET—and society more generally—is to overcome the barriers that keep women from acquiring relevant skills and accessing higher-productivity jobs. TVET not only has the potential to improve the school-to-work transition for girls, but also to promote the productive participation of women in the labor market, equipping them with the skills needed to undertake the jobs of the future or to help them “cross-over” to “male” fields where returns are higher. Read the full article ..