Why is education important?
- improves employability
- reduces inequality
- promotes cohesion by reducing ignorance, intolerance
- improves health, sanitation, nutrition
- empowers women
- allows people to live sustainably
- allows people to contribute to their commmunity
How should education be delivered in order to be effective?
- delivered in mother tongue rather than national language
- keeps children studying longer
- quality of education must justify distances involved
- pay given to teachers must reflect expected quality
- relevant curriculum, current in terms of ideas and attitudes
- with essential facilities eg. Toilets, quiet classrooms, hygienic cooking areas
- food provisions for all children
What is the global access to education like?
- 59 million have no primary education
- 65 million have no secondary education
- 69% of females have equal access to primary education as male peers
- falls to 48% for secondary
What can cause availability of education to get worse?
- poverty
- conflict
- epidemics
- remote geography
- cultural conservatism
- marginalisation of groups
How is education linked with development?
- education allows people to know and assert human rights
- allows females to challenge barriers to education and contribute to workforce
- increases access to hygiene, healthcare, family planning through spreading awareness
- improves communication, trade
- improves knowledge and skills
What is the gender split in the workforce in Iran?
- 23.5 million males
- 3.5 million females
How many attacks against females are reported in Iran per year?
- 600-700
What is the average age of women when they have their first child in Iran?
- 20 for those educated to a basic level
- 24 for those undertaking higher studies
What happened in 1977?
- many women started enrolling into universities
- though only form upper class, urban families
When did the Islamic Revolution occur?
- 1979
- reintroduced patriarchal family law
- curbed women’s autonomy
What happened in the immediate years following the Revolution?
- 1980, universities and high schools were shut down for 3 years
- female teachers lost jobs
- in 1981, new textbooks were published, with specialisation for women in nursing, nutrition, child rearing and health
How have human rights been worsened after the Islamic Revolution?
- in 2011, women were barred from enrolling into 70 courses
- mainly in STEM, business and agriculture
- 2012, security personnel were required to beat women who did not wear the hijab according to government standards
How have human rights been improved in Iran since the Islamic Revolution?
- 2000, Universities introduce Women’s studies course, looking at Women’s rights
- 2006, quota system was expanded and resulted in segregated higher education system growing
- increased access to education
- 2009, newly married women must attend government mandated family planning classes
How easy is it for women to find work in Iran?
- only 20-25% of educated women could find employment in 2016
Why do attitudes towards female education vary?
- education of women is a lower priority in rural developing countries
- women collect wood and water
- educated women command a higher dowry and thus are harder to marry off
- Cost of education is high and boys are more likely to be employed due to societal structures
- Perception of women as being sources of labour and have children at young age (due to mortality rates)
- rural areas have not been exposed to ideas of gender equality as much as urban areas
Why did Iran accept the reduction in female rights brought by the Revolution?
- Only urban areas had experienced Shah’s feminist policies
- thus rural areas did not care much
- Women did not support these ideas, strict families kept daughters at home
- were not able to experience these freedoms themselves
- People were more attracted to the interpretation of the Quran used by the Revolution
- only when fathers allowed women to go to school were women aware of human rights
- only became more common as education become more widespread years after the Revolution
