The African Union has declared education as the theme for 2024, setting the stage for a renewed commitment to "building resilient education systems for increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality, and relevant learning in Africa." According to the Continental Education Strategy of Africa, this includes enhancing and protecting equitable access to quality education for girls and women.

A 2023 report by UNESCO and the African Union noted that despite significant progress in access to quality and inclusive education, the enrollment gap between girls and boys continues to widen as they progress through school. The report also highlighted that girls are less likely to attend and more likely to drop out of school at the secondary level.

Throughout the AU’s “Year of Education,” a key topic of discussion has been how to promote gender equality in participation in formal education by removing social, economic, and policy barriers that hinder women's and girls' access to available opportunities. Among the frequently discussed barriers are gender-based violence in and out of school, child marriage, early or forced marriage, early pregnancy, poverty, lack of facilities, and support to help girls manage menstrual hygiene. 

We all need to continue identifying and removing such barriers. What seems to have escaped critical scrutiny, however, are the many concrete ways that the structure and organization of formal education inherently limit the participation of African girls. For example, formal education is building-based and conditioned on the availability of classrooms. Expanding access to formal education has, therefore, depended on the willingness and ability of the state and other actors to invest in building schools and providing necessary equipment and furniture. Consequently, many children in rural Africa, where such facilities are lacking, are deprived of access to even primary education. This burden is particularly heavy on girls due to various social and economic barriers that prioritize boys’ education.

Similarly, mainstream education relies on the availability of graduates from teacher training colleges. According to UNESCO,  Africa will need 17 million new graduates by 2030 to achieve universal primary and secondary education. Meeting this requirement is nearly impossible, given the multitude of pressing priorities competing for the continent's meager resources. Moreover, women are less likely to join and graduate from teacher training colleges, and less likely to take on teaching roles, due to various social and economic barriers.    

Formal education imparts information and skills to students that align with the needs of the labor market, especially in urban areas. However, it often falls short of instilling ethical behavior in students, nor does it nurture in them a sense of commitment to contribute to the transformation of their communities. Instead, it often reinforces wider economic dynamics that pressure individuals to migrate to larger urban centers and to organize life choices around the consumption of goods and services.

The question then becomes: What would an alternative education look like—one that is not subject to the constraints inherent in formal education and which makes educational activities accessible to all?

Alternative educational programs provide a key means to remove barriers that hinder access to education, by tailoring educational activities to fit the specific circumstances of participants’ lives, such as offering classes outside conventional school hours and settings. The global Baha'í community, for example, is learning to create a system of education as a core element of its endeavor toward realizing a vision of human civilization that harmonizes the material and moral dimensions of existence. 

This process unfolds in a variety of physical spaces, aside from schools, where a structured curriculum can be delivered. Locations such as homes, places of worship, community centers, or under trees have been used for educational activities in diverse settings from the hinterlands of Africa to the big metropolitan cities in North America and Europe. Offering  structured educational activities in dynamic social contexts may present challenges, but it has brought educational opportunities much closer within reach, particularly to girls and women in rural Africa and other developing regions who have been excluded from formal education due to cultural, social, and economic barriers.

In the alternative education system that the global Baha’i community is learning to build, any community member is believed to be capable of gaining the basic competencies of a facilitator within a few months after completing a sufficient number of courses in the sequence and performing the acts of service the courses encourage. This approach has opened opportunities for women and girls not only to participate in but also facilitate structured learning processes.

In addition to its gender-responsive settings and gender-transformative method of instruction, the beliefs and values woven into the curriculum are also gender-transformative. The belief that everyone, regardless of any of their identities, is born with inherent capacities that can be realized through proper education underpins the sequence of courses. The pivotal principle of the oneness of humanity and the more specific principle of equality between men and women are not only deliberately included in the curriculum but also expected to structure relationships and interactions among participants of a learning group. Consequently, the courses are contributing to the transforming of established patterns of oppressive gender relationships in growing numbers of communities.

To summarize, the way formal education is currently organized has inherent limitations in providing educational opportunities, especially for women and girls in many rural communities in Africa and other developing countries. Civil society organizations have been implementing alternative education programs that cater to the specific socio-economic circumstances of such communities. In many parts of the world, these programs are the only opportunities for girls and boys to participate in structured educational activities. Therefore, public discourses and policies need to pay more attention to the critical role these programs are playing and the lessons they are garnering on not only how to expand access to education by adapting its organization to specific socio-economic contexts but also making it a catalyst for community transformation.

Daniel Hailu is a Representative of the Baha’i International Community’s Regional Office in Addis Ababa