Prepared by: Yonatan Demeke

Submitted to: Trhas Tadesse (Assistant professor in HE/HP,

PhD in public health)
Submission Date: 6/6/2013
 Introduction
Ethiopia is recognized as one of developing countries in the world characterized by
persistent levels of extreme poverty and inequality. Gender-based inequality is also
one of the major and big challenge in our country, Ethiopia.
Women perform a key role in maintaining and managing the household through
their responsibilities for reproductive activities such as food preparation, health and
hygiene and child care. Much of their time is spent in walking long distances to
fetch water, collect fuelwood, and preparing food through labor intensive tasks. In
spite of this key role in the Ethiopian economy and house hold welfare, they
experience persistent inequality and discrimination. Women consistently perform
poorly in measures of education, mortality rates, health and other key social and
economic indicators.
Education is an important contributor to social mobility at the individual level, and
the driving force behind economic, social, and cultural development at the national
level. Developing countries lay strong emphasis on education in order to accelerate
the development processes. The disadvantageous position of women is apparent in
terms of access to and success in education.
According to UNICEF the illiteracy rate in Ethiopia is lower in females than
males. The gender inequality in education widens correspondingly with education
level. Unavailability of educational opportunity and inability to succeed in
education has many implications for the lives of women. Uneducated and less
educated women are likely to be poor and tend to have large families, which
increases the likelihood of reproductive health problems; and also vulnerable to
stress and depression.

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 STRATEGY
For a long time, researchers have recognized that educating girls is important for
improving health, reducing gender equality, and empowering women.
Global commitments to girl’s education have focused on primary education. This
focus must continue, and international commitments to universal primary and
secondary education must be met, because primary and secondary education results
in positive health outcomes that include reduced fertility and child mortality rates.
And in addition, post-primary education has strong positive effects on health
outcomes and contributes to the broader empowerment of women. Research shows
that education is most beneficial to women in settings in which they have greater
control over their mobility and greater access to services.
In order to achieve the gender inequality in education that means to increase girls’
education in our country one of the most important strategy is behavioral change
of the community by giving various education to the population. These includes in
different Medias like TV, radio, magazines etc.
Another strategy which could change the behavior of the community in my opinion
is bringing popular women which came from the community and show them as a
role model to the community. And those women could give various initiating
information to the community in different public places and even in schools by
presenting as a role model and sharing their experience and challenges in their
previous lifetime.
Empowering women is also one of the best strategy which can definitely bring
behavioral change in the community to increase girls’ education. Empowering
refers to a process whereby women develop strength and skills to act towards a
personal or collective good. It helps in preventing and protecting against the
challenges faced by other girls from the community in the way of living condition
which could be in the education sector or other gender based inequalities.

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In general, Gender-based inequality is a phenomenon that affects the majority of
the world’s cultures, religions, nations and income groups. Yet there are
differences in the way gender disparities manifest themselves and how they have
evolved over time. It is vital to develop frameworks and strategy for capturing the
magnitude of these disparities in order to design effective measures for reducing
them. There are various strategies designed to create greater awareness among a
global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities
created by reducing them.