Efforts to fight female illiteracy, boost gender equality lauded
BEIJING: China has made significant progress in curbing female illiteracy, according to a white paper.
Released by the State Council Information Office on Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China next month, the report lauded the progress in several chapters as well as other gender equality and women’s welfare improvements in a host of areas, ranging from financial and political status to maternal health.
The illiteracy rate among women aged 15 and above had seen a drastic decline over the last 70 years, from 90% to 7.3% as of 2017, the report said.
It said the enrolment rate for girls in primary schools reached 99.9%, a sign that gender bias had been basically eliminated in a large chunk of China’s nine-year compulsory education.
For higher education, 52.5% of college students were women in 2017, which was 32.7 percentage points higher than in 1949.
Women’s presence in graduate schools and non-academic training were also on the rise.
“The progress matters because it helps women actualise their values, and their education level can influence the younger generation,” said Meng Man, a professor at Beijing’s Minzu University of China.
“Schoolgirls are not only builders of China, but also mothers of the future,” she said at a news conference on Thursday.
Equal access to education and other development opportunities for women are constitutional rights in China.
In 1996, education authorities released a landmark guideline to curb girls’ dropout rate in rural areas and impoverished ethnic communities, where school opportunities, if any, were generally saved for boys.
In the decade that followed, the central government rolled out policies to subsidise schoolgirls from financially strapped families and to exempt them from fees, including school accommodation and textbooks, while receiving free compulsory education.
School attendance was also underscored in the report as China works to eliminate absolute poverty before 2021.