Ethiopia announced a phased reopening of schools starting from October 19, 2020. The Ethiopian Ministry of Education said that 30% of all public schools in the country, except those found in Addis Ababa and its surroundings, would reopen provided that they met COVID-19 health and safety guidelines, such as ability to provide face masks and sanitisers and hand washing facilities. The Ministry of Health also urged schools to enforce the compulsory wearing of masks and physical distancing. This blog post highlights how, because of societal norms, the COVID-19 pandemic may further widen the gender gap in education, and recommends additional precautions that need to be taken to alleviate these indirect effects.
Pandemics, child marriages, and school dropouts
An extended interruption in schooling due to a pandemic can reverse the progress made in terms of eliminating child marriage and, in turn, promoting girls’ education. This is a practical challenge in the context of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), as illustrated by outcomes in West Africa during the 2014 Ebola crisis. During that time, schools were closed for up to nine months in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. When schools reopened in these three countries the dropout rate among girls was significantly higher, which was attributed to teenage pregnancies and early marriages during school closures (UNDP, 2015). The COVID-19 pandemic may have similar effects in Ethiopia as schools in the country have been closed for more than seven months. This poses a serious challenge to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets, namely that of SDG Goal 4 to “eliminate gender disparities in education” by 2030, and SDG Goal 5 to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage.”
In Ethiopia, the prevalence of child marriage declined from 75% to 40% between 1980 and 2015 (UNICEF, 2018, p. 9), as measured in the SDG framework.[1] Despite this significant decline overall, additional efforts are needed to eliminate child marriage by 2030. For instance, in the Afar, Benshagul Gumuz, and Somali regions the prevalence of child marriage remains at 50% or above (UNICEF, 2018, p. 5). Worryingly, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to reverse over three decades of progress towards eliminating both child marriage and the resulting school dropouts.
Emeline Wuilbercq recently highlighted a network of committees set up across Ethiopia to identify children forced into work or marriage during school closures due to COVID-19.[2] While identifying girls that are victims of child marriage during the pandemic is necessary, it is not sufficient to reverse the damage that has been done. National, regional, and woreda-level responses are indispensable to both prevent such fundamental human rights violations and to ensure every girl’s right to education. The Bureau of Women, Children and Youth Affairs (BWCYA) in every woreda faces a real test in mitigating the effects of the pandemic on the gender gap in school reenrolment and completion. The BWCYA should create awareness of the adverse intersectional (individual and societal) impacts of child marriage and pursue appropriate legal steps to fight for girls’ rights to lead a healthy life and to education. In this respect, the BWCYA is expected to enforce the rule of law by prohibiting and dissolving illegal child marriages.[3]
The woreda-level Bureau of Health must play the major role in bringing girls who are above 18 years of age back to school. Late entry to schooling occurs frequently in rural Ethiopia, and many children are considered overage for their grades. The pattern of school attendance in Ethiopia shows that 32%, 16%, and 13% of girls attending primary and secondary schools were 19, 20, and 21 years of age, respectively (UNESCO, 2013, p. 19). For such girls, who may be legally married, pregnancy can be detrimental to their ability to return to school and complete their education. The Bureau of Health in every woreda must ensure that those girls receive family planning advice to delay pregnancy.
Assistance, health, disability, and economy ravaged by COVID-19
While the exact economic impacts of COVID-19 are unknown, economic prediction models forecast a rise in poverty due to pandemic-related income and employment losses. In a worst-case scenario Ethiopia’s GDP is estimated to fall by 4.5 percentage points, which will in turn push an extra 2.2 million people into poverty and lead to further marginalisation of rural communities (UN, 2020, p. 19). In this context, households’ responses to the income shocks may have varying effects among boys and girls. When rural households in Ethiopia face income losses, parents are more likely to prioritise investment in the health and education of their sons (Haile, Tirivayi and Nillesen, 2019). Thus, external support is vital for households that are financially constrained as they may not invest equally in boys’ and girls’ education when schools reopen. Realising the ultimate goal of bridging the gender gap in education will require support from governmental or non-governmental organizations. Such support may be in the form of conditional cash transfers based on school attendance of female children, or in-kind assistance and accommodation to facilitate girls living in places where high schools and higher learning institutions are available.
Finally, the impact of COVID-19 on girls can be compounded by multiple or intersecting inequalities, such as disability. Generally, the health-related effects of COVID-19 on people with disabilities are likely to be greater. People with disabilities are more susceptible to contracting the disease because they may face barriers to implementing basic hygiene measures, require personal assistance and therefore cannot practice physical distancing, and have pre-existing health conditions (WHO, 2020). Risks for women and girls with disabilities are further increased as healthcare and support services are disrupted or made inaccessible due to COVID-19 restrictions (WHO, 2020). Currently, there is not enough evidence on how the indirect effects of the pandemic differ between boys and girls with and without disabilities. Hence, with respect to the diverse impacts of COVID-19 on education, it is not clear how these effects vary among girls based on their disability status and what kind of intersectional approach would best promote educational equality for girls with disabilities.
Concluding remarks
As Ethiopia has started reopening schools, this blog post highlights feasible precautions to mitigate the indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on widening the gender gap in human capital development in the country.
In this light, the measures that must be taken in line with Ethiopia’s commitment to end child marriage and promote education of girls are:
- identifying girls that are victims of child marriage during the pandemic, and enforcing the law against illegal child marriages to ensure every girl’s right to education;
2 ensuring that female students who are above 18 years of age, and who may be legally married, receive family planning advice to delay pregnancy so that they can reenroll to school;
- providing support from governmental or non-governmental organizations in the form of gender-targeted conditional cash transfers or in-kind assistances based on school attendance of female children; and
- collecting data on the varying indirect effects of the pandemic on education based on disability status of students to prescribe intersectional approach that would best promote educational equality for girls with disabilities.
About the author
Kaleab Kebede Haile is a development economist who works as a Principal Researcher at Includovate. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Economics and Governance from Maastricht University and a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from Haramaya University. His fields of research interest and expertise include impact evaluation, gender analysis, climate resilience, lab and field experiments, adoption of agricultural technologies and innovations, food and nutrition security, human capital development, and poverty and inequality dynamics.
Footnotes
[1] Measured as the proportion of women aged 20 to 24 years who married before age 18.
[2] These committees can obtain information from the woreda-level Bureau of Education on girls’ reenrolment rates in both primary and secondary schools in every woreda.
[3] Article 7 of the Family Code sets the minimum age of marriage for both sexes at 18 years. Article 648 of the Criminal Code stipulates that “Whoever concludes marriage with a minor apart from circumstances permitted by relevant Family Code is punishable with: a) rigorous imprisonment not exceeding three years, where the age of the victim is thirteen years or above; or b) rigorous imprisonment not exceeding seven years, where the age of the victim is below thirteen years.”
References
Emeline Wuilbercq (2020) Ethiopia hunts for children forced to work, marry during pandemic. Thomson Reuters Foundation, October 19, 2020. Available at: https://news.trust.org/item/20201019094148-z65ro/
Haile, K. K., Tirivayi, N. and Nillesen, E. (2019) Climate shocks, coping responses and gender gap in human development, UNU-MERIT Working
Paper Series. №52. Available at: https://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=8405
UN (2020) One UN Assessment: Socio-Economic Impact of COVID-19 in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: United Nations. Available at: https://ethiopia.un.org/en/49388-un-socio-economic-assessment-covid-19-ethiopia
UNDP (2015) Confronting the gender impact of Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. UNDP Africa Policy Note. Vol. 2, №1. Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/crisis-prevention-and-recovery/undp-s-policy-notes-on-the-economic-impact-of-the-ebola-virus-in.html
UNESCO (2013) Ethiopia: Age distribution and school attendance of girls aged 9–13 years. Available at: https://www.who.int/immunization/programmes_systems/policies_strategies/Ethiopia_country_report.pdf?ua=1
UNICEF (2018) Ending Child Marriage: A profile of progress in Ethiopia. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/ethiopia/reports/ending-child-marriage
WHO (2020) Disability considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Disability-2020-1