Vietnam has made progress in achieving goal on primary education
Ha Noi, Aug. 27 (VNA) -- "Viet Nam has made considerable progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals on Primary Education," says a United Nations report released in Ha Noi on Aug. 26.
It elaborates: "there now exists very little difference between enrolment rates of boys and girls of primary school ages."
It admits: "the gender gap in enrolment rates still exists for secondary school. In upper secondary schools the gap has declined from a 15 percentage point to an 11 percentage point difference between boys and girls enrolment rates."
The report on "Gender Differences in the Transitional Economy of Viet Nam", jointly conducted by the National Committee for Advancement of Women (NCFAW), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), shows that despite important gender equality achievements there exist some areas where women and girls are still at a disadvantage compared to men and boys.
"Inequalities in living conditions persist between men and women in Viet Nam," says the report.
"The proportion of women earning wages is only about half the proportion of men. Between the 1993-98 period, the proportion of women in waged work increased only four percentage points, from 19 to 23 percent. Men enjoyed a far greater increase of 9 percentage points from 32 to 41 percent," the report adds.
It explains that women receive lower wages for the same type of work as men in some sectors and that women are also overwhelmingly concentrated in lower skilled professions, such as teaching and manual labour, and are less likely than men to be found in senior management positions.
"Men and women record similar numbers of hours spent in paid work. However, women spend over twice as much time as men doing household labour for which they are not remunerated, leaving women little or no time to participate in leisure, cultural, social activities, and further education."
The newly-released UN report also says that both adult men and women reported improvements in their nutritional status between 1993-1998, though men enjoyed the largest improvement. Adult women, especially those in rural areas, in poorer households and amongst people of ethnic minority, are still more likely to suffer from chronic energy deficiency than men.
Regarding credit accessibility, the report notes: "women also face more constraints to accessing credit than men, especially given that they often do not have collateral, such as land."
The report also points to Viet Nam's strategy for the advancement of women over the next 10 years, which was recently signed by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. The strategy focusses on the rights of women in the workplace, their education and health, as well as their political role and leadership in order to improve the country's gender equality. --Enditem
