The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Today is Friday, September 8th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Paul Schlehlein and presented by Yamikani Katunga.
Why Nations Should Educate Their Women
Literacy rates and per capita Gross Domestic Profit go hand in hand. In general, the more a country can read and write, the higher income that nation will earn.
For example, according to World in Data 2018 statistics, Italy has a high GDP of over $42,000 per year and an equally high literacy rate of over 99%. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has a very low GDP of $1,500 per year and an equally low literacy rate of 37%.
Approximately 72% of the world’s illiterates are in Africa. Of the bottom fifteen countries worldwide with the lowest literacy rates, fourteen are on the African continent. All of these countries also have low GDPs. This is because education is one of the chief instruments to reduce poverty.
But is literacy only important for the males of a society, or is it important for females as well to know how to read and write? Will nations succeed when they encourage their women to be well-educated? The biblical answer is yes.
Scripture does not encourage the rulers of a civilization to disparage or hamper their women. Nations are to honour and respect them. Both men and women are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14). Both men and women are designed in the image of God (Gn. 1:27). Both men and women have been created for good works (Eph. 2:10). This doesn’t mean men and women are the same in the every way. Most certainly they are not. But God calls both men and women to be productive. When a nation’s women are highly educated, they have a better chance of bringing prosperity to their families and society.
A good example of this is the Virtuous Woman in Proverbs 31. She’s not unskilled and uneducated, as is common in many Muslim nations today, where women have scandalously low literacy rates and are sometimes not allowed to go to school or own a driver’s license.
Instead, this woman is business savvy. Proverbs 31:16 says: “She considers a field and buys it.” This woman is agricultural savvy. The verse says, “With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.” She is bargaining savvy. Verse 18 says she “perceives that her merchandise is profitable.” She has marketing strategy. Verse 24 says, “She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant.”
This woman succeeded in the world of real estate. She wasn’t stupid. She knew how to work accounting sheets. She knew how to fill out contracts. She knew the ins and outs of property taxes. She knew the art of the deal. She knew how to turn a profit. She knew how to spot a bad investment. She knew how to buy and sell with the wheelers and dealers of her day. She knew what cultivars and fertilizers to use with various crops. She knew when to buy low and sell high.
This doesn’t come by accident. It comes through education. This is why nations must give the freedom to both their men and women to be educated. Japan is a great example of this. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan began requiring all girls to become literate. According to David Landes in his book Wealth and Poverty, by 1910 over 97% of eligible girls were attending schools. It is not surprising, then, that for decades Japan has been in the top five of the most wealthy nations in the world.
Be not mistaken. High literacy rates among women do not guarantee national prosperity. For example, even though Zimbabwe is among the poorest countries in the world, it has done a fairly good job at educating its women, with 91% above the age of 15 able to read and write—higher than more prosperous African countries like South Africa and Egypt. But the general rule is that more literacy, more reading, more books, and more writing means more prosperity.
The primary benefit of a highly educated female society is that these women will pass on their education to their children in the home, for the home is where women succeed most. But as we have seen from the Virtuous Woman, they also add to the prosperity of a nation through small businesses and other entrepreneurial pursuits.
Nations that fail to do this will handicap their people. Nations that encourage an educated female population will grease both wheels of the family so that the husband and wife, father and mother, are giving back to their community.
And that’s it for The Africa Review in Five on this Friday, September 8th in the year of our Lord 2023. Subscribe to the Missionary Minds podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts. I’m Yamikani Katunga. Be not weary in well-doing.