Learn the Issue: Education for Women and Girls
Across the globe, nearly 70 million children are deprived access to a basic education. A 2008 estimate states that 60 percent of these children are girls (Alter). Among developing nations, “the gender gap between boys and girls in primary school completion rates is greater than 10 percentage points.” An additional 100 million girls worldwide that begin primary school do not finish (Herz and Sperling). The numbers are even starker for secondary education, which is unavailable to more than 200 million children and in which we see even more extreme disparity in enrollment and completion between boys and girls (Alter).
From a regional perspective, there exists particular worry about Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia (Latif). In Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Yemen, girls typically go to school for less than a year. In Sub-Saharan Africa, four out of five women do not receive any form of education (Alter).
At roughly 50 percent, Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world, coupled with a gross disparity when broken down by gender. For females, it’s about 35% as compared to approximately 62 percent for males. (In Pakistan, the standard for “literacy” is met if one can read a newspaper and write a letter in any language.) Given these literacy rates, it’s hardly surprising that a Pakistani girl receives, on average, just two and a half years of education; for boys, it’s double. If a girl lives in a rural area, she is three times less likely to complete primary school than is a boy in the same area. Likewise, in rural areas, the female literacy rate is 25 percent and only one in five girls is enrolled in school. Secondary education is a luxury in Pakistan for all children, but even more so for girls, for whom enrollment drops by nearly 90 percent from 1st grade to 12th grade (Latif).
Of course, these facts are devastating in their own right, but this devastation is painfully exacerbated by the costs associated with not educating women and girls in the developing world. Indeed, studies have shown that efforts to address the abysmal gender disparity have rippling effects that stretch far beyond the classroom. Research has demonstrated that such investments can strengthen families and lift them out of poverty, save the lives of young children, improve the health of populations, reduce unemployment, help combat epidemics, dramatically increase a country’s agricultural productivity and overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP), reduce the instances of female genital mutilation, and contribute to an increase of women in parliaments—thereby making a developing society a more developed one.
Use these links for more information about access to quality education for girls and women in developing countries:
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