When we talk about the education system this comprises more than basic education. To better understand the relationship between education, gender, and development, we will briefly describe the most common stages of an education system. Note that these stages may differ according to the national priorities and ideologies of a country.
1. Pre-primary Education / Early Childhood Education
- designed for children aged 3-5 until primary school;
- in this stage children start to develop social skills by interacting with their peers; they are learning through exploration; they are introduced to language and mathematical concepts;
- goal: introducing children to education outside of the family/home environment; social interactions; school readiness;
2. Primary Education
- designed for children aged 6-12 until secondary school;
- in this stage children acquire reading, writing, mathematics skills; this is the stage where their teacher(s) prepare them for learning various subjects;
- goal: teaching fundamental skills; laying down a foundation for specialized fields of studies; preparing them for lower secondary education;
3. Lower Secondary Education and Upper Secondary or High School
- designed for children aged 11-14 for Lower Secondary;
- designed for children aged 14-18 for Upper Secondary or High School;
- in this stage children complete their basic education; a single teacher is usually replaced by various single-subject specialists;
- goal: complete basic education (basic skills, lifelong learning)
4. Vocational education refers to the education process where students “acquire the knowledge, skills, and competencies specific to a particular occupation or trade or class of occupations or trades”;
5. Adult education – sometimes described as continuing education, recurrent education, or second chance education – refers to the education process through which adults seek to improve their professional or technical skills and knowledge in their particular field of expertise; The term “life-long learning” is also used.
6. Literacy – “the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts”; it does not only consist of reading/writing skills, but also of numeracy (mathematical skills);
Education as a primary responsibility of the government:
Allocation of public funds and resources is – and will, for the foreseeable future, be – the primary responsibility of the national governments. From the macroeconomic perspective of education, the more a given government spends on education, the more progress, and growth. For a visible impact of education ideally around one-fifth of the government budget should be allocated to education. As per the composition of government budgets, salaries for teachers should be the biggest chunk of the budget because good teachers are the backbone of a good education system; financial incentives within the field of education attract and retain talent. Other qualitative aspects refer to budgeting for teaching and learning materials, curriculum development. Infrastructure like the building of schools matter of course too.