Forced Illiteracy of Women, the Incidence of the Rural Areas

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify the illiteracy of women in rural areas of Albania in the past two decades. The reasons that led to forced child illiteracy of peripheral areas will be also considered, especially focusing on the consequences that illiteracy left among women. Their illiteracy affects the next generation through their children's education. The comparative approach is what dominates the paper, referring to the comparison of the educational system in two periods, the communist and the post-communist regime in Albania. It is an interstate comparison, only in a few cases will be referred to regional and global comparisons concerning certain parameters of compulsory education. References of the paper will be mainly based on statistics fro the Institute of Statistics and the Ministry of Education and Science. Cases published in the print will also be to the attention of this paper, as well as standards and strategies regarding compulsory education in the country and in Europe. The paper seeks to attain an in-depth look at the problem and an approach from all angles, the factors and actors that have led to such a rate of female illiteracy in rural areas. One of the expectations of the paper will be the connection between reality and educational reforms in the country, the non-objective/biased approach and as a result the failure of the educational reform in the whole territory, in cases when specifics, social groups and gender are not taken into account. Illiteracy of women is not a sum of unfortunate cases, but a failed educational reform.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n4p46