Education

Since late 2016, the Anglophone regions of North-West and South-West Cameroon have been engaged in a crisis born of linguistic, educational, and political grievances. Lawyers, teachers, students, and activists protested what they saw as a grotesque marginalization of the state’s English-speaking population, furious with their minimal political representation and severely impacted institutional systems. The protests were largely peaceful and stemmed from post-colonial frustrations; until 1961, both Britain and France had significant stakes in separate parts of Cameroon. With eight of Cameroon’s ten administrative regions functioning under French civil law – including the nation’s capital Yaoundé – education, media, and public affairs are dominated by the Francophone central government, leaving the remaining two Anglophone regions underdeveloped and disparaged.

In a shocking escalation, Cameroon’s military responded to the 2016 peaceful protests with excessive and violent force, killing several civilians and arresting hundreds of protesters, many of whom still remain unlawfully detained. Their use of tear gas on non-protesting individuals was also a particularly troubling detail and one of many human rights violations committed by the Cameroonian government during these events. Ilaria Allegrozzi, an Amnesty International researcher, condemned the government’s actions and explained that “responding to incidents of violence during protests with unnecessary or excessive force threatens to further enflame an already tense situation and could put more lives at risk.”

The separatist conflict has only further intensified with the growth of movements calling for an independent state – the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” comprising North-West and South-West Cameroon. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) launched a revival of Operation Ghost Town in 2017, urging communities across the two Anglophone regions to close their shops, stay home, and block traffic in protest of the government’s actions. However, the Cameroonian government countered by deploying elite security units, imposing internet black-outs, and outlawing the CACSC entirely, detaining its leadership under anti-terrorism laws. Since then, there have been countless clashes between government forces, militias, and separatist “Amba” fighters across Anglophone regions. The government and pro-state groups have committed retaliatory raids, summary killings, sexual violence, forced displacement, and scorched-earth tactics; however, both sides are guilty of unjust atrocities. Separatist factions have abducted, tortured, and executed villagers, including women and children, for being perceived as “outsiders” or as government collaborators.

Long before the physical conflict erupted, however, education had been one of the most obvious markers of the divide between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon. Although the country is officially bilingual, the two education systems are shaped by different colonial legacies and operate almost entirely independently. In practice, the Francophone system has received a far larger state investment, more administrative autonomy, and greater overall political backing, while the Anglophone system has been chronically underfunded, understaffed, and structurally ignored. This disparity is not simply bureaucratic; it directly affects students’ futures. Anglophone students face fewer educational resources, fewer higher-education opportunities tailored to their system, and a disproportionate number of barriers when applying to national institutions that overwhelmingly operate in French.

Recent research shows just how steep these educational disparities have become. A 2022 report by the International Crisis Group found that the crisis in Anglophone regions has disrupted education for over 700,000 children. The same report noted that in 2017 and 2018, the regions saw widespread school boycotts and closures of institutions tied to emerging separatist movements, deepening the education gap. Furthermore, students in the Francophone education system scored significantly higher in Grade 5 mathematics than Anglophone students, a gap that can be attributed to better classroom equipment and teaching methods in Francophone schools.

By consistently elevating Francophone institutions and undermining the Anglophone education system, the state of Cameroon has turned schooling into a symbol of cultural and linguistic marginalization. These dynamics set a foundation for an identity-based political struggle that now massively defines the crisis in the country. Understanding this struggle requires stepping back to consider how identity itself is constructed and why it becomes such a powerful political force.

The question of identity is a broad one. First, we must define what it constitutes.

At its core, identity encompasses language, culture, institutions, and the shared sense of belonging that a community holds. In the case of Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis, the educational disparities and administrative neglect has eroded not only material opportunity but also the deeper feeling among English-speaking Cameroonians that their community is recognized and valued by the state. The Anglophone minority has long perceived itself as marginalized, a significant 20% of the population yet consistently excluded from decision-making, cultural visibility, and critical policy.

This sense of exclusion gives rise to a unique type of identity politics – collective action rooted in a shared, communal experience of injustice, rather than in purely individual grievances. In Cameroon, protests against education, language, and judicial policies became, almost inevitably, expressions of a conjunct power seeking recognition and redress. When schools failed, languages were subordinated, and legal institutions became skewed towards Francophone systems, the Anglophone community saw this as a denial of its cultural and institutional worth. Their demands shifted from a reform of the status quo to a full-on assertion of their identity, elevating ideas of autonomy, federalism, and even separation as a path to preserve and protect that identity.

Under the idealized vision of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, identity has become both a political aspiration and a cultural foundation. For many Anglophones, Ambazonia represents a space where British-derived institutions, common-law practices, and community schools can finally operate without interference from a Francophone-dominated state. Unlike some separatist conflicts, this dream is not merely territorial; it is a locus of institutional integrity, where classrooms, courthouses, and local administrations reflect the linguistic and cultural realities of the people that they serve. The movement has gained emotional backing precisely because daily life in the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon has long been shaped by unequal schooling, restrictive state infrastructure, and diminished control over local educational curricula. In this environment, language itself becomes a dividing factor. The inability of many Francophone administrators, teachers, and officials to communicate fluently in English (and vice versa) heightens misunderstandings and fuels polarization between the two groups. Communities withdraw inwards, reinforcing their own narratives and suspicions as cross-linguistic dialogue becomes virtually impossible. The more the central government imposes centralized Francophone systems, the more Anglophones will gravitate towards a shared political identity that has its roots in resistance. The support behind Ambazonia reflects this shift: a collective belief that preserving community, culture, and the success of future generations requires reclaiming control over the very institutions, especially schools, that shape identity.

It is unfortunate that this conflict, founded in frustration and disparity, has snowballed into serious violence. In Cameroon, we see the tragic phenomenon of a positive feedback loop. As mistrust deepens and communication collapses, each side retreats further into its own linguistic and cultural identity, fueling the kind of extreme group polarization that turns political grievances into violent conflicts. Every new clash reinforces the divide between the factions, making reconciliation feel increasingly out of reach. Educational inequalities and language barriers only harden this wall and will ensure that these fractures are inherited by new generations.

Image source: wikimedia commons

December 9, 2025 23 comments

Economics Education Korea Youth

The Paradox of the Prestige Economy: How Chaebols Drive Youth Unemployment in South Korea

written by Matthew Inui

In South Korea, the road to a good life is clear: study hard, get into a top university, and then work for one of South Korea’s family-owned conglomerates, often called chaebol. But for many of the country’s highly educated youth, this path has seemed more like a dead end. Korea boasts one of the highest tertiary education rates in the world, yet Korean youth find themselves increasingly unable to find a job. Although there are many explanations for this phenomenon, including education inflation and stigma surrounding vocational careers, one of the main drivers of youth unemployment is the chaebols. While the chaebols deserve much credit for driving South Korea’s incredible economic development over the past 30 years, they also deserve significant scrutiny. It is high time for the South Korean government to critically examine the ‘untouchable’ chaebols and determine a path forward that supports the new generation of job seekers.

Education and Employment in the Prestige Economy

In South Korea, reputation and educational credentials are deeply tied to an individual’s value in the job market. As a result, Korean youth go to great lengths to build their resumes, with the most prestigious accomplishment being securing a job with one of South Korea’s chaebols. The four largest chaebol—Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and SK—980.5 trillion won ($729 billion) in 2023, accounting for 40.8% of the country’s nominal GDP. In fact, 84% of South Korea’s GDP can be traced to just 64 companies.

Because of their incredible significance to the Korean economy, working for a chaebol carries almost unparalleled stability and status in Korean society. The larger the chaebol, the greater the associated prestige. In 2011, more than 100,000 individuals took Samsung’s entrance exam, increasing to nearly 200,000 test-takers in 2014. In 2015, Samsung had to switch to a new test format to accommodate the increase in test takers.

However, despite their significant market contributions, chaebols only represent about 10% of jobs in the country. As a result, young people are finding it increasingly difficult to secure one of these coveted positions in a chaebol, even as rates of tertiary education rise. South Korea has the highest percentage of youth with tertiary education among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Nearly 70% of Korea’s population between the ages of 25 and 34 held a tertiary degree as of 2023, which is 20 points above the OECD average.

Yet, despite their academic accolades, youth are turned away from jobs at chaebols in incredible numbers. In these cases, they have two options: accept lower employment or remain unemployed and wait for the next opportunity to work at a chaebol. Although many college graduates take the first option and find themselves in part-time or informal positions for which they are overqualified, most Korean youth opt to wait for a second chance. As a result, more than 5% of Korean youth are neither employed nor engaged in formal education or training (often referred to as NEETs). The NEET rate is especially high among university graduates; 45% of NEETs in Korea have a tertiary degree, compared to just 18% in the OECD.

Consequences of Inaction

As youth unemployment increases, the effects of the chaebol dominance in the minds of job seekers can be seen across the country. For one, as South Korean college graduates find it increasingly difficult to secure a good-paying and socially respectable job, there is growing disillusionment among Korean youth over the return on investment of higher education. On average, college degree holders earn only 24 percent more than high school graduates, compared to 69 percent more in the United States. University graduates also have a higher unemployment rate than their less-educated peers. With youth poverty rates on the rise, many Korean youth are questioning an educational and economic system they perceive to be working against them. Youth satisfaction in Korea is below 20%, lower than in most other OECD countries, and 60% of Koreans believe they have a low chance of improving their economic condition.

These feelings of hopelessness have been exacerbated by growing inequality in Korean society, especially in education. A recent study by the Bank of Korea found that parental income is the primary driver of educational disparities, not student potential. When comparing students from the top 20% of income to students in the bottom 80%, students in the highest quartile were more than twice as likely to attend a top university. Because chaebol tend to hire exclusively from Korea’s top universities, students from wealthier families have an advantage in the job search.

Besides the individual impacts of chaebol dominance, many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also struggling with the economic reality. Despite Korea’s high youth unemployment rate, nearly 40% of SMEs face labor shortages. For one, pay at SMEs is drastically lower than at chaebols; on average, SME employees earn 50% as much as their chaebol counterparts. However, many Korean youth also take low-paying, non-regular employment at chaebols over more steady employment in SMEs, hoping to someday transition to a full-time position. Especially because the transition rate from SMEs to large companies is less than 3%, many Korean youth are willing to wait to work at large companies because they expect more returns throughout their careers.

Overall, high youth unemployment and the dominance of chaebol employers in the labor market have had a dampening effect on the Korean economy. After waiting years to enter a chaebol, many young Koreans eventually abandon entering the labor market altogether, often becoming financially dependent on their parents. They also frequently forgo major life events, such as marriage and having children, which poses problems for Korea’s rapidly aging population. Many estimate the economic impact of Korea’s NEET population to be 61.7 trillion won, which represents 3.2% of the nation’s total GDP.

For so long, the chaebol have been thought of as “too big to fail,” and government regulation has been sparse. However, younger generations are becoming increasingly aware of the adverse effects of the chaebol on the South Korean economy. Youth unemployment and educational pressures are just the tip of an iceberg of price discrimination, investment failures, and economic inequality. Although the chaebol have been a significant part of Korean economic development in recent years and will likely continue to play a role in the near future, South Korea cannot afford to continue turning a blind eye to the clear costs of inaction.
Especially with the upcoming presidential elections and increasing discontent with the status quo, there is potential for a major economic overhaul. Instead of serving as engines of opportunity, as they used to, chaebols now represent a closed system that locks youth out of meaningful economic advancement. Whether through structural reform, greater support for SMEs, or breaking up monopolistic circular ownership, the need to regulate chaebols has become more evident now than ever. As youth face an increasingly hostile labor market, South Korea has the opportunity to, through difficult but necessary policy action, redefine what prosperity means for future generations.

May 18, 2025 313 comments

Education Syrian Civil War

The Attack on Education in Syria

written by Lucine Ekizian

Education in Syria has been under attack since the beginning of the civil war, which spanned over a decade.

Beginning as a peaceful uprising of pro-democracy groups against the rule of the Assad lineage, the government cracked down on rebel groups and the conflict intensified into what is known as the Syrian Civil War. As the crisis entered its 13th year, the UN Syria Commission of Inquiries stated, “The warring parties’ attempts to resolve the conflict militarily have enabled the violation or abuse of nearly every core human right.” With the Dec. 8 fall of the Assad regime, Syria must focus on reconstruction and rehabilitating education, as its schools had been targeting northwest Syria throughout the conflict.

A study conducted in 2000 by Kenneth Bush and Diana Saltarelli of the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre posits that the distribution of education has a positive face – including nurturing linguistic and ethnic tolerance – while the withholding of education has been historically used as a weapon of war. When explaining the denial of education as a weapon, the study states, “This kind of intellectual starvation tactic is a violation of basic human rights.” Depriving children of basic human rights, such as the denial of education during times of war, disrupts child development and puts a deliberate deadlock on the advancement of civilians’ education.

Last year, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack identified 83 attacks on schools in Syria, and their report in 2023 was the first to identify child recruitment for military conscription to and from schools. In agreement with targeting education being used as a weapon of war, Bush and Saltarelli suggest, “The loss of childhood in militarized violence means that the gradual process of socialization, the development of confidence, and sense of responsibilities are short-circuited.” With the vitality of schools, both during times of conflict and not, how could states, such as Syria, safeguard education?

Syria is not the only state that underwent an educational crisis amidst armed conflict – Palestine and Ukraine, both zones of armed conflict, have seen record-high incidences of attacks on education in 2022-2023, according to the Global Coalition to Protect Education’s report. These record-high levels have been attributed to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of the Israel-Hamas war. These levels can be attributed to schools being repurposed as shelters for civilians or places for military units to take over in both conflicts. Moreover, without previous domestic policy and international law being enforced in these states before the conflict, the neglect of accountability and targeting of schools have aimed to deracinate civil society.

Syria has yet to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration, an intergovernmental agreement that allows states to commit to restoring and protecting education during armed conflict. Although the declaration is a thorough outline that aims to protect the states that endorse this measure, if member states do not meet regularly with states that don’t endorse this, then there would be a gap in the dispersal of education. As a result, the proposed declaration may not be fully effective in its means to safeguard education. Nonetheless, UNICEF has supported the rehabilitation of 26 schools across Syria and has been working on 17 more in the past year. Even though Syria has not endorsed the declaration – and will likely not because of ISIS’s influence on education – humanitarian organizations must focus and create task forces to extend their assistance to countries that have not endorsed the declaration, as those countries’ civilians’ education is most at risk.

The majority of Syria is under the control of the Islamic State (ISIS), which has exhibited its vision of women’s education through its Women of the Islamic State manifesto. The manifesto states, “It is possible to draw up a plan for the ideal education of our girls, one which begins when they are seven years old and ends when they are fifteen, or a little earlier,” discouraging women from obtaining higher education. One solution to this issue may be to minimize ISIS’ influence on Syria’s education by uprooting the organization, but former Syrian regimes have notably supported the organization. But, a pathway to move forward to safeguard education could be to keep the current education system and its curriculum accountable, abiding by international standards. The United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was enacted in 1997. Article 13 of the covenant states, “Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, based on capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.” The Women of the Islamic State manifesto directly contradicts the covenant and by holding the state accountable by international standards, Syrian civilians can see a positive rehabilitation of education.

With the recognition of the international attack on education, a global commitment that holds states accountable is imperative to prevent attacks on schools. Furthermore, this global commitment must extend to post-conflict rehabilitation and restructuring educational systems to ensure future safety and rebuild the curriculum to accommodate the gap in education during armed conflict.

Although the Assad regime supported ISIS, the current de-facto leader of Syria, the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham rebel group – controlling most of Western Syria – has opposed ISIS. The fall of the Assad regime also means the rewriting of a new constitution, which can take up to three years according to the leader of HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and an election can take as long as four years. Nonetheless, the rewriting of the constitution would be a source of educational rehabilitation. Should a new constitution be drafted under Ahmed al-Sharaa, it would likely stray away from ISIS views of education, as HTS has targeted ISIS. But, it can be argued that HTS’ attacks on ISIS can be seen less as a crackdown, and more as a consolidation of power – an example being American journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem’s claims about torture and human rights violations in HTS detention – pointing toward the conclusion that HTS’ motives may be centered more around centralizing power than citizen safety.

From the Assad regime to HTS’ new de-facto leadership, Syria may not know who will take over for another four years, leaving gaps of uncertainty and a lack of focus on civilian education under either regime. With humanitarian assistance, increased international legal accountability and abiding by the UN’s claim to equality and education, Syrian civilians may see a path toward safely exercising their right to education.

January 13, 2025 292 comments

Education Featured Human Rights Print Article Society and Culture Women's Rights

Global Gender Inequality and Disparity in Education

written by Shannon Courtney

Shannon Courtney’s article is additionally featured in The Generation’s Spring 2022 Digital Print Edition:Women. Coming June 1st 2022.

Education provides individuals with the tools, skills, and knowledge needed to succeed in a complex and interconnected world. Throughout history, girls have struggled to receive equal access to schools to further their educational goals. Although there have been recent international initiatives and treaties to combat this challenge, there is still a persistent struggle in many countries to provide girls with universal access to education and close the gender enrollment gap. Educating girls contributes to women’s empowerment globally and positively affects the family and communal structures of society through health status, education, and overall socioeconomic prosperity.

Where Gender Inequality in Education Stands in the Present

In 2007, the Global Education Monitoring Report identified gender equity and women’s empowerment as “requiring greater international attention in order to create sustainable development and increase global growth.”¹ In 2013, the United Nations created the Sustainable Development Goals to achieve societal and global progress through commitments such as cutting poverty, empowering women in education and the workplace, reducing infant mortality, and improving health institutions worldwide. This initiative declares that “every human being, including every child, is entitled to receive an education.”² However, despite the strong legal initiatives and advancements for access to educational institutions for women and girls, societal structures and systems continue to perpetuate disparities and boundaries between women and men. Studies show that although international social and economic policies have prioritized increasing women’s education, they “ignore the harsh impact of structural adjustment especially on poor households where female education may not be of a high priority.”³ The ‘global feminization of poverty’ refers to women disproportionately living in poverty throughout the world without adequate healthcare, food, water, housing, and education. Furthermore, women are denied fundamental rights and access to education, civil rights, and money in developing nations. In 2015, girls’ proportion of children out of school was 52%, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Arab Nations.⁴ Also, two-thirds of global illiterate adults–773 million people–are women, and around 129 million girls are not in school.⁵ Educational inequality for women drastically impedes social and economic prosperity and development within society.

Why Does the Education Gap Exist?

Although the Sustainable Development Goals assert that educational access is a basic human right for all children worldwide, the current legal pathways to education ignore the social factors such as gender bias, poverty, and violence that enable the global education gap. Gender bias within primary agents of socialization — parents, school, and social institutions — also reinforces messages that affect girls’ perception of their societal roles, labor engagement disparities, and occupational segregation. Education is a vital social institution and equips individuals with skills and tools to carry out different functional roles in society. For example, through socialization, children model their parents’ behavior, actions, and beliefs to develop their education and career goals. More specifically, girls tend to model their mothers and boys tend to do the same with their fathers as they attain their ideas, beliefs, and aspirations.⁶ Thus, if children, especially girls, are being disincentivized by their primary agent of socialization to not attend school or lack educated role models, it can cause a cyclical process of unequal access to formal education.

Poverty is also a significant factor indicating accessibility to educational institutions for women and girls. For example, the education expenditure in Somalia was .99% in 2017, where only 23% of girls compared to 42% of boys were enrolled in school.⁷ In comparison, the United States has an education expenditure of 5% of the GDP at $700 billion.⁸ Since there is a lack of universally free public education globally, girls may not have equitable access to educational resources compared to boys even within the same household. Moreover, the spread of Covid-19 has had substantial adverse effects on the educational, social, and behavioral development of children. Although it roughly affects more than 90% of the world’s student population, remote learning is scarce in communities facing extreme poverty, failed states, and refugee camps. For example, less than 1/2 of primary and secondary schools in SubSaharan Africa had access to “electricity, the Internet, computers and basic handwashing facilities, key basic services and facilities necessary to ensure a safe and effective learning environment.”⁹

Gender-based violence also impedes girls’ completion of formal education. According to the Global Women’s Institute at George Washington University, an estimated 60 million girls are “sexually assaulted on their way to or at school every year.”¹⁰ This particularly impacts the Sub-Saharan region of Africa which accounts for 50% of the global percentage of children out of school and results in a higher probability of sexual assault than literacy completion for girls.¹¹ For example, in Nigeria, 42% of the primary school age population were out of school.¹² Moreover, 43% of girls in Nigeria are married before 18 years old and 60% have experienced physical, emotional, and sexual violence under 18 years old.¹³ This produces drastic consequences for girls’ mental and physical well-being as well as lower attendance and higher dropout rates. According to the data, this can result in higher probability of sexual assault or child marriage than primary school completion for girls. Moreover, violence against women can cost up to 3.7% of countries’ GDP, “more than double what most governments spend on education.”¹⁴

How Women’s Education Affects the Individual, Household, and Society

When women achieve educational equality and close the gender enrollment gap in school, it empowers them, creates a fair and just community, and increases societal and economic productivity. On an individual level, education allows women to “be confident, independent, earn self-respect in the society, and unleash their full potential.”¹⁵ Education provides women with social interaction, knowledge, and tools to combat daily challenges, accomplish their professional aspirations, and acquire leadership in the community. A society’s investment in women’s education tends to have positive effects not only for the individual woman but for her family. Educated women tend to marry at a later age, which helps decrease the number of child marriages and health issues within a society. Increasing women’s health education benefits children through improved hygiene, immunization, nutrition, and lower infant and maternal mortality rates.¹⁶ Furthermore, when women have more access to resources such as money and knowledge, they are more likely to spend money on food, health, shelter, and education for their children.¹⁷

Investing in women’s education helps lift entire communities and countries out of poverty through increased workforce participation, higher incomes, and savings. Globally, despite constituting half of the world’s population, women make up only 10-12% of the entire formal workforce.¹⁸ For example, women in Latin America and East Asia consist of 53% and 59% of the labor force participation rate; this is strikingly higher than regions in South Asia and the Middle East with rates of 24 and 20%, respectively.¹⁹ However, through increased education, women are more likely to participate in the workforce, dramatically increasing a society’s economic productivity because women make up half the world’s population. When women’s income increases by 10%, and there is a 35% increase in GDP per capita of any country for every additional year of education for women.²⁰ Thus, educating women improves the quality of the individual women’s lives, family, community, and societal structures.

Solutions to Combat Gender Inequality in Education Throughout the World

Although the right to education is ingrained in global government institutions, economics, social, and cultural factors prevent girls accessing education. Therefore, the best solution to increasing women’s education worldwide is to provide social funding, scholarships, and mentorship programs that change the economic barriers of poverty for women to accomplish their professional and educational aspirations. In many societies stricken with absolute poverty, girls do not usually attend school because their families have to pay for them. Instead, parents would rather pay for their son’s education to attend school and have the daughter stay home and help with the household operations, which develops a cyclical womb-to-kitchen pipeline. Thus, scholarship programs would be a beneficial tool for girls to access school affordably and break the cultural expectation of traditional gender roles. For example, a scholarship program in Cambodia that helps girls afford to attend secondary school has increased girls’ school enrollment and attendance by 30%.²¹ In Ghana, a three-year senior high school education roughly costs 70% of the GDP per capita of the country.²² In an experimental study to assess the impact of free secondary education, winners of scholarships were 60% more likely to complete secondary education, receive 1.25 more years of education than non-winners, and 30% enrolled in tertiary education.²³ Although these various social welfare and scholarship programs address the economic barriers, it is crucial that initiatives to combat global educational inequality address the root cultural challenges as well. A consequence of implementing these solutions is that the scholarship program thrives on the support of the community or society on educating girls. If a particular society believes women should stay in the domestic sphere rather than being educated, it can make it difficult to change the social norms and stereotypes of women and receive funding. Therefore mentorship programs with educated women supporting and guiding younger girls within their community could help them feel empowered and encouraged to follow their dreams. For example, Project Kuongoza empowers women and girls across Sub-Saharan Africa and MESA “with STEM, ICT skills and enable them to compete successfully in the global information economy.”²⁴ The program offers a yearly fellowship program that pairs young girls aged 15-25 with professional women in STEM to help cultivate digital literacy and access untapped labor markets where women are historically underrepresented.

Women make up half of the world’s population; however, they are robbed of fundamental human rights such as the right to receive education worldwide. Educating girls and women worldwide help solve global issues such as poverty, health, malnutrition, and social and economic development. When women lack educational access and socioeconomic opportunities, it impedes society’s economic growth, further subjugating women to an inferior quality of life. Therefore, a political commitment by countries is essential to raise awareness regarding the importance of women’s education for themselves, the household, and the greater society and create programs to combat educational inequality. Increasing girls’ access to educational opportunities through mentor and scholarship programs will help increase the overall international development of countries.

Endnotes

Leah Jackson. “Educate the women and you change the world: Investing in the education of women is the best investment in a country’s growth and development.” Forum on Public Policy, 2009. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ870099
Tabreek Somani. “Importance of educating girls for the overall development of society: A global perspective.” Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 2017. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jerap/vol7/iss1/10/
Shailaja Fennell and Madeleine Arnot. “Gender education and equality in a global context:Conceptual frameworks and policy perspectives.” Routledge, 2007. Accessed on January 15, 2022, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203939598
Tabreek Somani.. “Importance of educating girls for the overall development of society: A global perspective.” Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 2017. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jerap/vol7/iss1/10/
World Bank. “Girls’ Education.” 2021. Accessed on January 21, 2022. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation#1
Buchmann, C., DiPrete, T., & McDaniel, A. “Gender inequalities in education.” Annual Review of Sociology, 2008. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29737793
UNDP Country Office for Somalia. “Gender in Somalia” August 27, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2022. https://www.undp.org/content/dam/somalia/docs/Project_Documents/Womens_Empowerment/Gender%20in%20Somalia%20FINAL1.pdf
Mack DeGeurin. “The US spends more on education than any other country, but students lag behind academically. Here’s how much other countries spend and how well their students perform.” Insider, 2019. Accessed on January 25, 2022, https://www.insider.com/how-much-countries
United Nations Sustainable Development. “Goal 4.” Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2021. Accessed on March 1, 2022, https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4
The Global Women’s Institute. “School-Based Interventions to Prevent Violence Against Women & Girls.” The George Washington University. Accessed on January 21, 2022, https://globalwomensinstitute.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs1356/f/downloads/Evidence%20Brief-%20School-Based%20Interventions%20to%20Prevent%20Violence%20Against%20Women%20and%20Girls.pdf
UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “Reaching out-of-school children is crucial for development.” UNESCO, 2012. Accessed on January 25, 2022, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000216519
Ibid.
Girls Not Brides. “Nigeria” Accessed on February 10, 2022, https://atlas.girlsnotbrides.org/map/nigeria/
Caren Grown & Diana J. Arango. “Taking the fight against gender-based violence to schools” World Bank, 2020. Accessed on January 21, 2022, https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/taking-fight-against-gender-based-violence-schools
Tabreek Somani. “Importance of educating girls for the overall development of society: A global perspective.” Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 2017. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jerap/vol7/iss1/10/
Leah Jackson. “Educate the women and you change the world: Investing in the education of women is the best investment in a country’s growth and development.” Forum on Public Policy, 2009. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ870099
Ibid.
Tabreek Somani. “Importance of educating girls for the overall development of society: A global perspective.” Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 2017. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jerap/vol7/iss1/10/
World Bank. “Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15+).” 2021. Accessed on January 25, 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS
Tabreek Somani. “Importance of educating girls for the overall development of society: A global perspective.” Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 2017. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jerap/vol7/iss1/10/
Leah Jackson. “Educate the women and you change the world: Investing in the education of women is the best investment in a country’s growth and development.” Forum on Public Policy, 2009. Accessed on January 20, 2022, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ870099
Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer. “The Impact of Free Secondary Education: Experimental Evidence from Ghana.” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021. Accessed on January 22, 2022, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3874078
Ibid.
STEMi Makers Africa. “Project Kuongoza” Accessed on February 19, 2022, https://stemiafrica.org/project-kuongoza/

May 17, 2022 431 comments

Balme Library, University of Ghana, Legon. By Tala Ahmadi.

Africa Education Featured

Failing the Test: The University of Ghana

written by Tala Ahmadi

Writer’s note: Every statement in this article and any reference to the University of Ghana or its staff and administration is strictly from the perspective of an undergraduate, international third-year social sciences and humanities student. This means that any reference to professors, administrators or students are those that I directly encountered during my studies at Legon, I understand that many factions of the university can be vastly different than the experience I had. (This was edited for clarity).

I spent the past year studying and living in Ghana. As a foreign exchange student at the University of Ghana, Legon (UG or Legon) in Accra, I experienced an academic world entirely foreign to my previous lifestyle at UCLA. UG, founded in 1948 and home to over 40,000 students, is Ghana’s premier university. It is located in Accra, Ghana’s modern, international capital. Many parts of the city boast skyscrapers housing multinational corporations, Mercedes-Benzs and Range Rovers dot the highways and western style malls cater to the large expat population and upper class.The city is visibly ripe with resources and houses a rapidly expanding elite. Despite its close proximity to this wealth of resources and an impressive alumni network, including the former Ghanaian president John Mahama, Legon lacks the fundamental levels of modernity and academic integrity needed to qualify as an advanced institution of higher education. The university is Africa’s seventh best, yet it currently does not rank in the top 600 universities in the world.

It is easy, and many of my fellow international students at UG held this mentality, to dismiss Legon’s issues as what is to be expected in a “developing” country and continent. This mindset is problematic because it reinforces the generalizing Western narrative of Africa as a continent of violence, corruption and poverty. Excluding widespread violence, Ghana does experience these issues and in many regards is crippled by them. However, fundamental resources critical to an advanced academic institution—like generators that work and reliable WiFi—have been available in Accra for too long to justify their absence from many parts of campus. UG’s subpar institutional quality is rooted in heavy administrative bureaucracy which hampers the university’s systemic effectiveness as well as faculty and administrators who are apathetic about the quality of education students receive.

Ghana is no stranger to systemic inefficiency. When you pay for a service in Ghana, there is never a guarantee that you will accurately receive that service. The country also struggles with a 24% poverty rate, high inequality, youth unemployment and corruption. However, the issues the country faces do not explain Legon’s current state. Monetary shortages and their effects are understandable, but UG demonstrated last year that it has access to funds. The university chose to neglect its pressing needs and instead allocated that money to trivial beautification projects.

During my last few days as a Legon student, I noticed new, impressively large black signs on the campus roundabouts. A new fountain was placed in the middle of the most congested roundabout on campus. After construction all year, a pond spouting water into the sky with extensive landscaping and flamingo statues by the main gate entrance was completed. To someone driving through UG, the updates make the campus look professional and legitimate. The fountain is definitely more aesthetically appealing than the previous dead grass and dirt, but—as a Ghanaian friend pointed out to me—how can the University justify displaying water flowing freely when students do not have reliable running water in their dorms?

Student housing conditions are cramped; many dorms house four to a room meant for two and some students even rent half of their bed to squatters for extra cash. Friends told me that they were often assigned rooms with doors that did not lock properly or were not given keys. The university should have directed the funds used towards landscaping to improve student housing or towards new chalkboards and white boards, replacing the irrevocably cloudy, old ones. Also worthy of budget allocation is improving the slow, inaccessible and unreliable WiFi on campus—even in the library. Why not consider replacing broken generators so when the power goes out, classes that use PowerPoints are not cancelled? Allocating these funds, regardless of their source, to trivial beautification projects is negligent. The apathy of administrators to raising the academic quality and resources students receive is unfortunately not unique to budgetary allocations.

Ghana’s culture of respect for elders has particular consequences for UG students who are culturally barred from holding their professors and administrators accountable. Like many places around the world, anyone significantly older than you demands non-objectionable respect regardless of the situation. This reinforces faculty indifference. Many of my professors seemed to genuinely not care about teaching. One professor showed up for only six or seven classes out of 13 weeks. In too many of my courses, professors cited data and assigned readings three to four decades old. My geography professor attempted to argue that the cause of homosexuality in Ghana was globalization. His PowerPoint slide read, “Globalization Indeed!” with an image of a newspaper clipping showing mug shots of four Ghanaian men with the headline, “Four homosexuals jailed 2 years each.” This type of thinking is not surprising in the West African country, where LGBT stigma is high and discussing the topic is taboo. But this is shocking information to be teaching a class at the supposedly premier higher education institute in Ghana considering homosexuality has existed in numerous cultures since antiquity.

Faculty and administrative indifference trickles down to affect student integrity. During a meeting for a group essay, I spent half an hour watching a group member look up an article on her phone and type it verbatim on the computer. I had a similar experience with another group project due the same day. As I compiled the paper I noticed a student’s’ contribution seemed out of place and random in the context of our topic. I google searched one of her paragraphs and a thesis came up at the top of the search. Plagiarism is widespread across campus because faculty and administration simply do not care enough to make the University of Ghana a campus of academic integrity. While there does exist a code that explicitly prohibits plagiarism, it clearly has no weight behind it. How can Africa’s seventh best university ever be taken seriously if its staff neglects to enforce one of the fundamental tenants of academia?

The University of Cape Town (UCT) ranks as Africa’s best university mainly because its research is taken seriously and cited globally. UCT is a leading global research institution because it emphasizes a strong international perspective (about 18% of UCT students are international) and secures donations from multinational corporations like Ford and MasterCard. Integrating a global framework at UG may attract the interest of foreign investors who could direct funds specifically for modern academic necessities instead of fountains and landscaping. While on campus last year, I heard murmurs of Chinese corporations potentially developing a high speed WiFi infrastructure on UG’s campus—this is a good start. To compete internationally like UCT, Legon professors, many of whom are knowledgeable and intelligent, must reevaluate their courses and practices to ensure data cited and required readings are up to date, enhance student engagement by emphasizing analysis rather than regurgitation and view their students as clients rather than their social inferiors. This applies to administrators as well, whose cultural respect accords them power over students. While the suggestion that students should be considered clients may be an American concept incompatible with West Africa’s culture generally, in the educational setting I believe it is necessary to ensure students receive the best quality services.

The apathy of many faculty and administrators should not exist in Ghana’s premier educational institute. The economic and urban advancement of African countries is often overlooked by the world in favor of their issues. While the problems the continent faces are defining features of many African nations, their successes are as well. The University of Ghana is located in one of the world’s most globalized cities with access to the resources necessary for a modern academic institution. Africa’s seventh best university is in a position to deliver a high quality university education and student experience. As Ghana continues to advance, it must deliver on that promise to the generation that will lead it into the future.

January 16, 2017 445 comments

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Failing the Test: The University of Ghana