ctually outnumbering boys at secondary school in some countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa only about 30 per cent of the total teaching force is female.9 Separate facilities for girls at school, such as latrines, also act as a factor affecting their enrolment.
All of these factors operate throughout the educational cycle, but the pressures on girls to end their education are likely to increase around puberty as cultural and moral considerations about male-female contact and concerns regarding possible adolescent pregnancy come to the forefront. Evidence that educated women delay the start of sexual relations and child-bearing longer than uneducated women may not be enough to overcome traditional attitudes, particularly when combined with some of the other factors mentioned above such as costs, distance and a girl's limited options for future employment. Traditions regarding arranged and early marriages assert an additional influence at this age, particularly where customs like bridewealth are in operation. In some cultures, more than basic education for women is considered to affect their marriage chances negatively, as educated wives are considered too sophisticated and harder to control.
The gross enrolment level for boys and girls in secondary school have improved across most of Sub-Saharan Africa since 1970, and the gender gap has also decreased. In 1970 only 10 per cent of boys and 4.4 per cent of girls went to secondary school. These figures increased over 20 years to be 21.2 per cent of boys and 13.8 per cent of girls. In Ghana, gross enrolment ratios were above regional average, and roughly on par with the averages for the developing world as a whole, with 47 per cent of boys and 30 per cent of girls attending secondary school in 1988. Even with these improvements, a gender gap of 35 per cent still exists at secondary school, an increase of the 20 per cent gap in primary school enrolments between boys and girls as measured in both 1980 and 1988.10 Clearly boys and girls are not progressing through the school system in equal numbers. Ghana has had a law on compulsory primary education since 1961, but the evidence shows how elusive gender equality can be in practice. Eve is being disadvantaged early in her youth.
The tertiary or higher level of education, where technical and professional credentials are earned, is where African women are least well represented. In all regions of the world except South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, there are at least 60 female students for every 100 male students in higher education. In South Asia, women drop to 44 per hundred men, and in Sub-Saharan Africa there are only one third as many women students as men. In comparison, male and female ratios in higher education are virtually equal in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America.11
The percentage of the population entering tertiary education in Ghana decreased slightly from the beginning of the 1980s to the end of that decade. Gross enrolment levels for men were only 2.3 per cent in 1988, and for women only 0.6 per cent. Analysis of the subject areas chosen by those in higher education showed only two per cent of all students were enrolled in education courses in 1988, of which a negligible percentage were women.12 If we consider for a moment the projected need for teachers even to meet the goal of primary education for all referred to above, we are clearly heading for trouble. And the special need for female teachers to help improve the educational attainment of girls is even further from being met. A true national emergency exists in this field which requires urgent attention.
We know that education increases women's self-esteem and confidence, and encourages a sense of control over personal destiny. Studies show that women who have a similar level of education to their husbands are in a much better negotiating position in family decision-making areas and are more likely to stand up for themselves. Educated women are also more likely to use contraception to limit the size of their families at their desired level, an