Eritrea has made commendable progress in its efforts to ensure the prevalence of ‘Education for All,’ including universal primary education and gender parity at all levels of education. Attention has been given to the expansion of education in the hard-to-reach areas to absorb children, male and female, who are out of school. Education is a foundation of development, and, therefore, providing equal educational opportunity to all is a means to providing equal opportunity for development.
Eritrea has made significant strides towards gender equality and women’s empowerment by adopting and implementing appropriate legal instruments. As of today, Eritrea has ratified many international treaties that aim to elevate the human rights and equality of women, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1994), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1995), the International Convent on Civil and Political Rights (1999), the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (1999), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2001) and the Beijing Declaration and Global Platform for Action. It also ratified the ILO Conventions in 2000. The ratifications and commitments to implement the resolution of the terms of agreement is a clear sign of Eritrea’s pledge to promoting gender equality and human rights.
At the core of inclusive education is the right to education, which is pronounced in various national documents. The National Charter of Eritrea (1994), for example, states: “Education is a fundamental right to which every Eritrean is entitled. Therefore, we must expand education to the rural areas of the country where educational opportunity has so far been scant.” The national policy of education also emphasizes the right for all children to receive education without discrimination on any grounds.
At a time of enormously expanded access to all levels of education and high aspirations for equal participation there are still children that are out of school. The struggle continues until the same proportion of girls and boys enter and complete schooling. Advancing gender equality and empowering women has been the priority of Eritrea since independence. As a result, notable achievements have been made in ensuring gender equality. Compared to the status of women in 1991, progress has been made in narrowing gender gap. Female youth literacy rate has increased from 49.3% in 1990 to 92.71% in 2018. At national level, transformative gains in girls’ education have unfolded in the three decades of independence.
Female enrolment continues to grow, and the huge gender gap continues to be reduced. Proper attention has been given to women education over the last decade to ensure greater participation of girls and equitable distribution of educational services. Although the overall progress that has been made so far is encouraging, the progress varies from one region to another. A report of the last academic year (2022/2023) shows enrollment of girls in schools (from primary to secondary level) was 48.4% in Anseba region, 46% in Southern region, 48.9% in Central region, 41.46%, in Northern Red Sea region and 28.2% in Southern Red Sea region compared to enrollment of male students. And in Gash Barka region, female enrolment was 38% in secondary schools.
Eritrea recognizes the importance of education and training for the development of the country. Education, in general, and higher education, in particular, boosts females’ confidence and ultimately helps them lift themselves out of poverty by getting employment and generating increased income. There was a time when only very few women were enrolled in colleges. The time has changed, and women take up the same roles as men confidently and do a wonderful job. The enrollment of women in Eritrean institutions of higher education has significantly risen over the years. In the academic year of 2022/2023 females constituted 44.65% of college students.
Higher education can change the perception, direction, values and behaviour of women. With higher rates of women’s enrollment in higher education the possibility of breaking the poverty cycle rises and the old attitude toward women vanishes. Fields of study in science and technology have traditionally been considered a male’s domain. That is not the case anymore. In 2022/2023 academic year, the College of Engineering and Technology had 519 (33.87%) female students while the College of Sciences had 514 (49.45%) female students.
As part of its on-going efforts to boost women’s participation in education, the government has criminalized underage marriage and harmful traditional practices. The Macro Policy of Eritrea (1994) unequivocally states that “the equal rights of women will be upheld and all laws that subtract from this right will be changed.” Toward that end, harmful practices, including underage marriage and female genital mutilation, have been banned by law as of 2007. Various legal amendments have also been made pertaining to the age of marriage. The new Civil Code of Eritrea that was published in 2015 has detailed the conditions common to all forms of marriage. Regarding eligible age, Art. 522 (1) states that “a man and a woman who have not both attained the full age of eighteen years may not contract marriage.”
All these advancements enable Eritrean women to live longer and happier than their predecessors. Eritrea has achieved praiseworthy accomplishments in creating a society that respects the rights and equality of women. Commendable as this is, it must not breed complacency as it still remains work in progress.