RESEP researcher recent Oped in News24: Opportunities for girls to excel few and far between

RESEP researcher recent Oped in News24: Opportunities for girls to excel few and far between

RESEP researcher, Linda Zuze, recently wrote an article for News 24 based on an earlier RESEP policy brief titled ‘Opportunity Gaps Among South African Girls. In her article, Zuze argues that “talent is spread evenly among young South African women, but opportunity is not”. The piece touches on the short-lived media attention that followed the abduction of the Nigerian Chibok schoolgirls in 2014. In particular, Zuze argues, this event brought to the fore the contradiction between global policy efforts to educate girl children whose parents can afford only limited opportunities and the strong cultural norms that can violently resist this progress. Furthermore, this is a plight that many South African girls also experience. Within the South African context, three important factors are argued to contribute to this phenomenon, including a divide in the quality of health services, nutrition, safety, housing and access to educational enrichment programmes; the low quality of no-fee public schools in rural areas; and gender-based violence. Read the full piece published here.