By Futhi Mtoba
Sacrifices, like business costs, are only worth the benefit they generate.
A cost in business is only deemed worthy if the cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that it is miniscule compared to the benefit they create; otherwise it is wasteful.
October 9 was the eighth anniversary of the shooting of Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, Malal Yousafzai. The month is also the Nobel Prize month, a tradition started by Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist Alfred Nobel in 1895.
The world also celebrated World Teachers’ Day (WTD) on October 05 to mark the adopting of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers.
This year, the coincidence of WTD with the shooting of Malala, the Nobel Prize week and the Covid-19 outbreak highlighted more than the brave efforts of this young Pakistani woman.
Over and above her quest to promote the education of women and children, where the Pakistani Taliban used to prohibit girls from attending school, we must ask whether or not in 2020 the women of South Africa and the continent have better access to education.
Covid-19 imposed restrictions on movement, and reduced school education to online tutoring for schools, often in communities without sufficient internet connectivity and affordable data.
Teachers and schools resorted to teaching and assessing learners via online platforms, like Zoom, Teams, Skype or Google Meetings. The reality in countries like South Africa is that only rich children enjoy uninterrupted tuition.
The digital divide is not only skewed against the poor in favour of the rich. It is also prejudicial to women.
A 2018 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, titled “Bridging the Digital Gender Divide”, made startling revelations.
In brief, “worldwide some 327 million fewer women than men have a smartphone and can access the mobile Internet…men are four times more likely than women to be ICT specialists. At 15 years of age, on average, only 0.5 percent of girls wish to become ICT professionals, compared to 5 percent of boys. Women-owned start-ups receive 23 percent less funding and are 30 percent less likely to have a positive exit compared to male-owned businesses”.
Women are less likely to have smartphones because, according to another report by Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), because of pressures they are under to feed their children and their fear of harassment by strangers online or by their spouses.
There you have it. In 2020, women in general are likely to be excluded from education, a basic human right, if their access to ICT facilities is curtailed by societal stereotypes; not necessarily in the way the Taliban shot Malala.
Malala took a huge risk in 2012, a bullet in the head, to ensure access to education. Only extensive critical care at the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham saved her life.
How many other Malala’s are walking amongst us today; and what are doing to spare them the pain and suffering so that we can truly say we are free?
The tragedy of the subtle gender-based violence and the anti-women orientation of our society is they deprive the world of the special talent that women bring to leadership and business. It will continue until we react to it with the same vigour and urgency with which we tackled Covid19.
Futhi Mtoba is Co-Founder of TEACH South Africa, Trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Former Chairman of Deloitte Southern Africa and Past of President of BUSA.
The Star