Happy children during school break time. Image from Pexels. Free to use.

By Raby S. Diallo and Stéphanie Manguele

While Sub-Saharan African countries have made progress on gender equality and significant strides in education, girls’ schooling remains a major challenge. Millions of young girls still lack the opportunity to attend school. Even when they do, they rarely complete their studies. Nearly 32.6 million girls of primary and lower secondary school age are currently out of school. This number rises to 52 million at the upper secondary level. Yet it is well established that women’s empowerment drives economic growth, which cannot be achieved without ensuring inclusive access to education.

The persistence of socio-cultural barriers

Girls’ education in Africa cannot be reduced to a mere issue of school access; it must address structural inequalities and patriarchal norms that hinder their progress.

Gender biases are deeply entrenched in many societies in Africa and are perpetuated within social structures, including schools. These biases make it difficult for girls to envision themselves in roles beyond those traditionally assigned to them. Educational materials often reinforce these gender disparities: women are rarely depicted in leadership roles and are typically shown only in domestic ones. A recent memo issued by certain national departments in Senegal allowing women to leave work early during Ramadan to handle household chores illustrates this contradiction. Far from trivial, this example reflects the persistent gendered division of labor, relegating women to domestic roles while men occupy strategic decision-making positions in organizations.

Truly inclusive education requires gender-sensitive policies that ensure girls have a safe and supportive learning environment. It is therefore critical to revise educational content to break stereotypes and encourage girls’ participation in science and technical fields.

Economic barriers must also be acknowledged. Educating children entails significant expenses, forcing families to choose between educating boys or girls. Because marrying off daughters is often seen as a way out of poverty, investing in their education is not considered a priority, unlike boys, whose success is promoted and invested in.

According to the World Bank and UNESCO, girls’ education in Sub-Saharan Africa is 30 years behind that of developed countries. Urgent measures are needed to break the gender wall, establishing girls’ right to education through three main avenues: raising community awareness of its importance, offering scholarships and financial support to disadvantaged families, and creating an inclusive and safe school environment.

Investing in girls’ education means investing in women’s empowerment and Africa’s development. However, true change requires acting beyond schools to deconstruct the social norms that assign girls a subordinate role in society from early childhood.

Ensuring girls’ right to education

Promoting girls’ right to education demands commitment from all stakeholders. More efforts are needed to provide solutions tailored to Africa’s complex realities. Everyone must be involved: civil society, governments, and non-governmental organizations all have roles to play. Governments, above all, bear the responsibility of ensuring this right is upheld and must therefore take all necessary initiatives.

Although African states have pledged to provide 12 years of free primary and secondary education to all children — boys and girls — such policies are often poorly implemented, hampered by poverty and the prevalence of socio-cultural norms within local communities that perpetuate gender inequality.

African governments must therefore undertake concrete reforms and increase investment to ensure that educational policies offer quality education to all young African girls. This involves eliminating social barriers to girls’ school access, establishing legal frameworks to ensure all girls complete their schooling by age 16, funding free compulsory education by allocating a larger share of national budgets to primary and secondary schooling, and ensuring safe, supportive learning environments — including by revising curricula to eliminate gender stereotypes.

They must also develop vocational training options for young mothers and vulnerable young women to prevent their exclusion, and take appropriate measures to prevent early marriage. In any case, monitoring and evaluation systems must be implemented to ensure these policies are effectively enforced.

Considering that most women allocate up to 90 percent of their income to the wellbeing of their families and communities, compared to just 30 and 40 percent for men, it is vital to increase legal, human, and financial resources supporting girls’ education. Beyond improving individual conditions, this investment will lay the foundation for the genuine transformation of African society.