Gender Defferences in Grade 6 Reading Literacy in Seven African Countries : Results from the Initial Project of Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ)

The Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) is a network of 15 Ministries of Education (and Culture) in Sub-saharan Africa that undertakes educational policy research focused on providing information that will lead to improved decision-making with respect to planning the quality of education. The initial SACMEQ project involved a major data covering some 20,000 pupils, 3,000 teachers, and 1,000 school heads in 1,000 primary schools from seven countries in Southern Africa sub-region. This data collection provided detailed information about the condition of schooling and literacy levels of pupils in primary schools. Detailed analysis of the SACMEQ data have been carried out in order to examine gender differences in pupil literacy levels across five SACMEQ countries (Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia, Zanzibar, and Zimbebwe). The results of these analyses have been reported in an article by Saito(1998). This article supplements the Saito report by adding results from Kenya and Malawi. The article concludes that: (a) gender differences in reading literacy at the upper level of primary school are not significant in most countries in the sub-region; and (b) other differences in reading literacy for pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds and different school locations are significant in all seven countries. The paper further argues that, given the similarity in boys and girls literacy levels at the end of primary school, the participation by girls in secondary school suggests that a vast pool of talent is being wasted. Some suggestions have also been advanced to explain the lower participation by girls in secondary school. These suggestion cover issues that deserve further research attention