Period poverty: unmasking inequality in academic awards

Sports, arts, culture and business play a significant role in the development of individuals and society at large. 

These sectors often bring joy, pride and a sense of unity to communities, showcasing the power of shared achievement. They thrive on fairness – a quality that determines how advanced or amateur a sporting, artistic, cultural or business discipline is.

When fairness is absent, interest fades, development stalls, and investment yields no real return. 

One way fairness is achieved in competitive spaces, I believe, is by having separate categories for males and females. 

This recognises that the two genders are not the same and should not simply be lumped together.

Prestigious sports, music, cultural and business awards typically have male and female categories, ensuring that natural differences do not give one group an unfair advantage.

When we buy tickets to a music awards event, we know the Best Female Artist award will be contested by women only. The same applies to many sports and cultural competitions. But this principle is not applied in the education sector.

Take the Annual Matric Awards, for example, where the best performing learner in mathematics in the Quintile 1 schools category might be male, with a female in second place, both competing in the same category. Why is this considered fair?

Education plays a crucial developmental role, particularly in communities affected by unemployment, poverty and inequality. It is inherently competitive and should provide a fair battleground. In an ideal world, both a male and a female learner could be recognised as the best in their respective gender categories.

Instead, a female who finishes second to a male by half a percentage point is ranked as runner-up – even though she may have faced unique challenges he did not.

In schools, fairness is standard practice in extracurricular activities. Boys’ sports teams do not play against girls’ teams, and leadership structures like the Representative Council of Learners elect both male and female representatives.

Yet at the highest level, this principle is abandoned, and only one chairperson is appointed – often either a head boy or head girl, but rarely both.

Menstrual Hygiene Day 2025 brought renewed attention to one such unique challenge school girls face: period poverty.

According to "Breadline Africa", more than a third of girls in South Africa miss up to a week of school every month due to lack of access to menstrual products and hygiene facilities, losing as much as 20% of their academic year.

This is not about girls being less capable than boys. It is about recognising that, in addition to the shared academic pressures all learners face, girls contend with barriers that can directly impact their performance and opportunities – barriers that boys do not experience. 

Period poverty is just one example of these unequal circumstances.

For this reason, I believe female learners should have their own categories in school, district, provincial and national academic awards.

If a school honours the Top 20 learners in a grade, it could instead recognise the Top 10 females and Top 10 males. This would ensure that achievement is celebrated within the context of the realities each group faces.

Critics might point to the additional cost of extra trophies, medals and certificates, but the investment would be small compared to the benefits. It would correct a long-standing imbalance and celebrate more learners for their achievements despite the challenges they face.

A gender-fair academic environment would produce more women who excel later in life. Do we want to send a girl home ranked third after two boys, or recognise her as the best among her peers who share similar circumstances?

It is up to us to decide.

* Given Majola is a property reporter at Independent Media. He was elected to leadership roles while at primary school, high school and also at the tertiary level. He writes in his personal capacity. 

**The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the publication.