Addressing the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on girls and women's education in Africa

Kindly find attached the report of  AU/CIEFFA webinar held on 7^th & 20^th May 2020 on addressing the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on girls and women's education.

I. Background 

The World Health Organization has declared the COVID-19 as a global pandemic. This situation has forced most of the globe, including Africa to adopt new numerous social protection measures such as school closures. Preoccupied by the increasing vulnerability of girls in Africa, the AU/CIEFFA has organized multi-stakeholder Webinars on “Addressing impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on Girls and Women’s Education”. 

II. Participation 

Experts from African Union (AU) Education and Gender Ministries as well as representatives of RECs, CSOs, Traditional and Religious Leaders, AU/CIEFFA focal points, Youth/AU/CIEFFA’s Alumni network, Researchers and Development partners attended the webinar series. Broken down into two-parts, the first webinar held on May 7th, invited the Anglophone community with Dr Rita Bissoonauth as moderator. The second, targeting the Francophone community took place on May 19th with Mrs Simone Yankey-Ouattara as moderator. 

III. African Union Members States’ response on the impacts on Girls’ Education 

a. Strategies developed and implemented by Member States

The pandemic has widened existing inequalities in the education systems. Prior to COVID-19, girls in particular, recorded the lowest enrolment rates and remain the most vulnerable under the current crisis. Some of these girls were already affected by continued conflicts and poverty, lack of adaptability with ICTs in education, inadequate infrastructure and ineffective gender sensitive policies. Schools represent a refuge and symbolize a safe space for girls, and because of school closures, many learners now resort to bartering in the informal sector, farming for livelihoods and domestic chores. Other learners risk exposure to harmful practices such as early and forced marriage, physical and sexual assaults, early pregnancy, female genital mutilations and resort to transactional sex and prostitution. 

The crisis has equally discouraged girls, dimming their hopes of succeeding through school. Parents with few means of livelihoods, alternatively pressure their girls into looking for more. If left unchecked, this situation will increase dropout rates of girls from schools. 

AU Member States and respective Ministries of Education shed light on their key approaches in order to restrain COVID-19 related impacts on educational systems. Such approaches include:

Establishing key response structures: 

A High -Level Task Force and an Emergency Committee established in collaboration with development partners, ministries of health and donors. These structures strive to avoid duplication and ensure coordination of action and programmes of stakeholders to best address issues faced by the most vulnerable groups of learners especially, adolescent girls.

Gender responsiveness: 

A key framework on gender mainstreaming is established, integrating a gender dimension in all responses providing basic & preventive information and services to meet girls’ and women’ needs. In order to tackle SGBV, a male involvement strategy has been setup with a one stop Response centre against SGBV and a rape emergency call centre. 

Continuous Information & Education: 

Efforts are deployed to disseminate reliable messages on TV, radio and social media to address education & health concerns of learners, parents and guardians. The focus is preventing GBV, HIV, STI, teenage pregnancy and promoting Menstrual and Hygiene Management (MHM ) and psycho -social support amongst others. Learners without internet or radio are receiving hard copy school materials to reduce learning gaps. Radios distributed to parents and caregivers in remote areas, as teachers are actively dispensing radio learning programs to facilitate distance learning.

Framing of the response:

Furthermore, ministries of Education developed a recently harmonized Learning Framework with learning packages in core subjects/themes to support learning for learners at primary and secondary education levels. In the implementation of this Framework, local governments and parents are actively engaged with an emphasis on deriving benefits for girls and young women.

Re -opening every school: 

AU Member States’ mid to long term approaches aim for schools’ re -opening. These include tracking all learners, launching a campaign to bring back learners, providing remedial classes for slow learners and cash transfers for out -of - school girls while considering classroom congestion. More measures comprise of capacity building training for Ministries of Education and key stakeholders in the protection of learners, installing WASH & MHM facilities in schools as well as disinfecting school establishments & surroundings. Other responses emphasize on delivery of feeding programmes.

Monitoring mechanisms: 

Among other key guiding documents, the Reporting, Tracking, Response and Referral Guidelines on violence against children and commitment made to its implementation by governments will be closely followed up with accountability mechanisms. 

Specific programs: 

Some countries have launched specific programs and concepts : “Mon école à la maison”, “Ecole fermée: mon cahier ouvert”, “Digital solidarity”, “Nation apprenante”.

b. Strategy and implementation related challenges by AU Member States 

Due to the COVID-19, multiple challenges have been identified as obstacles to AU Member States’ strategy implementation responses. These are as follows: 

Evidence based-approach:

Evidence from former pandemics has shown that when many learners are not in school, they are likely to miss out on vital services such school meals, socializing and protection. Consequentially, the likelihood at this time for related effects is heightened. 

Vulnerability and marginalization: 

Girls will be at higher risk of exposure to SGBV, transactional sex, Sexually Transmissible Diseases and Infections (STDs and STIs) and HIV/AIDs as well as early pregnancy & marriage which leads to their drop-outs. Furthermore, frontline health workers and caregivers will be at higher risk of overwork, burnout and contagion, making the task of support and alleviation in affected communities more difficult. Already marginalized communities will be harder to reach especially, learners with disabilities, pastoralist & fishing communities plus parents and caregivers without internet access or radio/TV. 

Effects of lockdown restrictions:

women and girls fear accessing basic services and amenities as a result of the growing presence of security actors. These restrictions have led to limited time in school for girls and an increase of household chores & burdens. 

Internet connectivity: 

Many countries have experienced connectivity challenges due to high cost of internet and poor coverage especially in remote areas. These challenges are juxtaposed with the lack of funding, slowing down expected results of the strategy implementation.

IV. Key stakeholders contributing to the Education response with a focus on girls a. Contributions from International organisations 

• UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organisation) highlighted its key measures, which include a virtual ministerial meeting, rallying 73 countries including 23 AU member states. An Ad-hoc Ministerial task force group has thus been established as an Education response. Furthermore, a Global Education coalition comprised of 100 member states, representatives from the private sector, CSO and UN agencies, has been developed to spearhead Flagships for a one-year period. These Flagship projects seek to address connectivity and content challenges, match learners needs with free digital solutions, whilst placing special attention on data security and privacy of learners & teachers. To better understand the gender dimensions of COVID related school closures, UNESCO runs a weekly webinar to promote knowledge and expand evidence base. On its website, national distance learning solutions and digital resources are curated. One exemplified practice is in Kenya which offers STEM education focused digital learning resources for inclusive education. 

Covid-19: Angolan Private Institutions declare bankruptcy if classes do not resume on July 13

Higher education: Angolan Private Institutions declare bankruptcy if classes do not resume on July 13

Just over 3 months later, without the tuition fees of the students, the institutions are already talking about bankruptcy. Regrettably, the government is not providing any financial assistance to the private sector in order to safeguard teachers' jobs. On the other hand,  the fault is also the poor management and the lack of vision on the part of the leaders of these same institutions, it is inadmissible that in less than a year the stock of these institutions become worthless.

How come an institution that raises more than 100 million a year, cannot survive a year without payments? Where did the money go? Is there no working capital? One thing for sure I know, if the Private Sector closes, the country will go into total chaos. 

TV news on this matter 

In recent times, higher education institutions have been announcing that engineering faculties are at risk of closing due to lack of teachers. A short time ago, Aline de Almeida the dean of the University Agostinho Neto reported that her staff has only two effective professors and 95% are collaborators who serve a universe of 200 to 300 students. Computer Engineering and Petroleum Engineering courses are the most affected. in addition, there is also a lack of teachers in mathematics and physics courses.

“There are professors already in age and length of service for retirement, but unfortunately, they are forced to remain there with them, as the university does not have the possibility of making new admissions”, she added. 

Furthermore, “there are serious problems with the infrastructures”, remembering that “the Faculty of Medicine never had its own facilities” and that “the [university] campus is yet to be concluded”.

These phenomena occurring in the universities of Angola are unacceptable. Angola is one of the countries leading the world with the highest unemployment rate, there are hundreds of highly qualified teachers and  young engineers trained abroad and inside the country who could occupy the teaching staff of these institutions. many of these professionals are unemployed, others are forced to change specialties and pick another career path in order to get a job to survive in this suffering country.

Unfortunately, State Universities prefer to close their courses rather than recruit new teachers.

It should be noted that the country have more than 4 million unemployed people. Large pockets of the population live in poverty without adequate access to basic services.

The shock of the new coronavirus

“The shock of the new coronavirus puts even more pressure on public finances in 2020’’, Angola in recession will have to pay 5 billion in foreign debt amortizations, with total interest payments increasing to more than 60 percent of government revenue. 

The country is suffering the consequences of lower oil prices and the impact of measures to combat the covid-19 pandemic, which has so far caused 284 people to become infected and 13 deaths from it.

No one wants to buy Angolan oil. Now the one who pays for our oil is not the one who buys,  we are the ones  who have to pay  them to buy it, because now the storage of oil is more expensive than the value of the oil itself. Sonangol is clogged with full storage and is begging abroad to buy it in order to be able to continue producing, but the countries that consume do not really want it, because their storage depots are also full.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased illiteracy, hunger, poverty and criminality including domestic violence. For example, a 24 years old man mercilessly raped a one year old baby. This cruel event shocked the country. 

An article by: Sofonie Dala