Long-Term Policy Recommendations
Societal roles, resources, and system structures present obstacles to women’s education in many different ways in countries in the Middle East. In Egypt, the lack of an effective pension program reinforces the role of women as wives first, while lack of government resources has created underfunded schools with underpaid teachers who use corruptly their positions to make schooling expensive. Each of these phenomena, both individually and together, affect girls’ easy access to quality education. In Saudi Arabia, traditional social roles have led to low employment for women, and inferior educational standards and funding. Though schooling is provided, it is at a lower quality and with smaller funding than for males. This phenomenon is ensured by strict gender segregation, though separate can never be equal. Segregation and lack of female teachers for female students limits their educational opportunity and quality. Finally, in Syria, low female participation in the workforce combined with the relative prevalence of child marriage give societal cause for girls to drop out after the primary level. Furthermore, the lack of government spending on higher education makes the option of staying in school unprofitable for girls who could reduce their family’s economic burden by working or marrying instead. Additionally, the prevalent political narrative embedded in Syrian curriculum has the effect of sending the message to girls that their talents are best used in the workforce, which they are highly unlikely to enter; meanwhile, their society preaches the importance of females as wives and mothers. This renders much of their schooling useless, which means their parents and families encourage them to drop out, especially if they are poor.
How can we begin to solve these problems? The actors that enact, encourage, and explain these issues are both everywhere and nowhere. Much of the time, it is simply tradition or religious belief that reinforce some ideas such as child marriage or gender segregation. Traditions and religions must be respected, and their ideas honored; however, all people are entitled to their universal rights. This means that women are entitled to equal education, and equal pay for equal work (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Though the official constitutions of all three countries examined treat women as equal to men, their laws and codes do not. In Egypt, it is legal for women to receive a lower pension than men; in Saudi Arabia, women still owe their obedience to their fathers and husbands (UNESCO). Syrian women sometimes must marry their rapists, who can then take them away from their families, friends, jobs, and schools (Save the Children 5). Therefore, the laws and codes of these nations, and therefore their governments and legislative bodies, can be identified as enactors of the obstacles that face girls’ equal education. Furthermore, those people who hold political power are the ones to whom these issues should be brought; they are the ones who can affect the positive changes needed to clear the path for girls to go to school.
There are a number of actions that policymakers could take, both long-term and short-term, to aid the schooling of the girls in their countries. For the purposes of these recommendations, long-term changes would be enacted during time period between ten and thirty years. Short-term changes could be enacted in ten years or less. However, the amount of time that each adjustment could take is entirely dependent on the popular support that it receives. As previously stated, much of the current situation in regards to societal roles and structures has traditional or religious derivations, and therefore garners a fair amount of popular support. In 2006, 86 percent of Saudi women agreed that they should not work alongside men; 89 percent agreed that they should not be allowed to drive (“Unshackling themselves”). However, in 2010, 61 percent of Egyptians thought that women should be allowed to work, but a greater 75 percent responded that “when jobs are scarce, men should have more right to work” (El-Naggar). Though more women have joined the workforce in Egypt, “a lot of the younger generation do not want to work,” says the chair of the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women, in Cairo (El-Naggar). Without popular support, no reform can truly be effective. The reason these reforms are suggested, though they may be initially unpopular, is because education should be guaranteed to all people as their universal rights.
Long-Term Recommendation #1:
Reform social security systems
The first long-term policy recommendation offered by this study is to reform social security and pension practices, so that Egyptian and Syrian families do not have to prioritize savings and budgeting over education. Of course this is a large and expensive undertaking that relies on the growth of both countries’ economies and their further development. However, its benefits are numerous. A safety net for citizens would mean that they do not have to base every day’s decisions on the thought of destitution later in life, a practice which has contributed to rigid social gender roles.
If Egyptian and Syrian families had assurance of their income and status after they can no longer work, they might be more open to their daughters pursuing their studies and careers, though this means that they must support them longer. In the long term, the financial costs initially paid by the government would hopefully be repaid by citizen contributions to long-term savings plans and taxes. The benefits of more employed citizens and a higher rate of female participation in the labor force would be a positive impact on women’s access to education, and would, in turn, raise government returns to expenditure on education, as well as increase taxes paid by a new generation of working women.
Long-Term Recommendation #2:
Reform state curricula
The next long-term policy recommendation would be to reform state curriculums that are taught in schools. At every level, the curriculum offered to male and female students must be identical: “[t]he curriculum should present both males and females as equal citizens, without a focus on one sex over the other, so that both genders can receive the same type of inspiration” (Al-Arashi 24). The curriculum must also be reformed to contribute to advancing their knowledge, skills, and abilities in order to prepare them for careers; states must also take action to make more jobs available for young, educated people, either by creating more jobs or allowing more private companies.
It is imperative that “[f]irst, the classroom must teach skills that Middle Eastern youth will need to apply later in life. Second, work opportunities must be available when students graduate. Third, the young graduates must receive an education that makes them willing and able to perform that work” (Bernard 37). This means that specialized curricula for girls that teaches them only home economics, or bars them from certain areas of study, must be abandoned. It also means that curricula that involve national narratives must not allow these narratives to encourage girls to drop out, as in Syria.
Long-Term Recommendation #3:
End discriminatory hiring practices
Another policy recommendation that complements adjusted curricula is to enact or enforce laws against gender discrimination in hiring practices. This is definitely a long-term policy adjustment, and it would likely be unpopular, especially in Saudi Arabia. However, for women to have a higher rate of participation in the workforce, they must have the legal right to do so. Without this right, women’s education will continue to have a sense of unnecessary cost or irrelevance to parents, especially of low-income families.
One of the most important sectors where gender discrimination must be eradicated is teaching. While women are up to 100 percent of all teachers at the pre-primary and primary levels, they make up usually no more than 35 percent of teachers at the tertiary level (UNESCO). Women must be equally employed as teachers so that girls have an equal opportunity to attend, especially within conservative traditions that exist in some places in the region. The costs of this will likely be political unpopularity as well as the economic burden of expanding the workforce in a time of already high unemployment. Therefore, this policy would also depend on the expanding and development of Middle Eastern economies. However, the benefit of educating and employing more women will lead to increased economic development in the following decades (Summers 15).
Long-Term Recommendation #4:
Reform corrupt educational structures
The final long-term policy recommendation this study will supply is to reform corrupt education systems, especially in Egypt, where teachers exploit their positions through corrupt tutoring. To eradicate this, it must be explicitly outlawed, and these laws enforced. Such an extreme policy adjustment would be certain to take a long time to make effective change, and would meet resistance from teachers. However, all signs point to the fact that students and their families would support cheaper and more straightforward education; in fact, such qualities are what have made new private schools with low tuitions aimed at low-income families recently popular (“The $1-a-week school”).
The cost of this policy would be heavy, as it would require both legislation and constant enforcement. However, the benefits to students and their families would be enormous: education would be much cheaper to the individual family, children would not be subject to abuse and extortion, and schools would once again be places of learning. However, a short-term and more cost-effective way of implementing this strategy would be to increase classroom observations and evaluation of teachers. The more teachers are held accountable for student learning, the better the school and learning environment will be.
