Education is everybody’s right. No girl, however poor, however desperate her country’s situation, is to be excluded from school. Education saves and improves the lives of girls and women, ultimately leading to more equitable development, stronger families, better services, and better child health.
Girls ‘ education has a broad impact on society and on human development. Long-term benefits include: Improved economic growth. Decades of research have found an important connection between expanding basic education and developing economics. Education for girls is having an even more positive impact.
Next Generation Education. Educated girls who become mothers are more likely to send their kids to school, passing on benefits and multiplying.
Send their kids to school, pass on and multiply the benefits.
Effect Multiplier. Training has a positive influence from health to HIV / AIDS security, exploitative labor, and trafficking on a child’s life.
More Healthy Families. When mothers are educated their kids get better nourished and become less sick.
Maternal deaths are lower. Women who have been trained are less likely to die in childbirth because they continue to have fewer children, greater awareness of health services during pregnancy and birth, and dietary improvements. The international community has committed itself to educating girls, yet investment in development is not a priority. The explanations are complex, and are based on faulty models of growth.
Models for production. Early development theories were rooted in the assumption that economic growth would lift countries out of poverty and reduce inequality, measured by gross domestic product. Despite numerous attempts to improve this model, the results have been disappointing. Additionally, this model was faulty because it was gender blind, and failed to take into account the status of women in relation to men and the economy of’ unpaid care’ –work usually done by women. Structural adjustment–reducing expenditure and giving more scope for prices and incentives to find their own level in the marketplace–was praised as growth models faltered in the 1980s. This resulted in drastic cuts in spending on education, health and food subsidies. This hurt the poor disproportionately, and produced no significant economic growth.
It was understood in the 1990’s that economic growth alone could not produce human development. Human development favors economic growth, in fact. Models for educating girls. While the Jomtien Conference and the Movement for Education For All recognized the importance of closing the gender gap, it mistakenly assumed that the general drive towards education for all would automatically reduce the gender gap.
Girls are often held back from school by local beliefs, traditional practices and attitudes about gender roles. But the objections of parents regarding their daughters going to school are often caused by security or economics rather than a belief that girls should not be educated. They might rightly be afraid the school is unsafe or the journey is dangerous or too long. Families might think they can’t afford to sacrifice help or income for their daughters.
The real problem is on the supply side-the availability of safe, accessible, gender-sensitive schools, women’s employment opportunities, or family educational information. In many countries, parents eagerly send their daughters to school if the importance of education is explained or tuition fees eliminated. A recent poverty report found that 135 million children between the ages of 7 and 18 in the developing world had no education at all, with girls 60% more likely to be so’ educationally deprived’ than boys. Poverty and the deprivation of education go hand in hand. The gender disparity in education for children living in poverty is considerably greater. Girls are thus in double risk, affected both by gender and poverty.
The alternative: A human rights, multisectoral development model An alternative development solution that will allow girls to enjoy their right to education, meet international community commitments and optimize the multiplier effects of investing in girls ‘ education is a human rights, multisectoral model.
Human rights Children’s rights are tied inextricably to women’s rights. Neither will it be implemented without ending discrimination in all forms, in particular gender discrimination multisectoral. There are many barriers that keep girls from enjoying their right to complete their education far from school–unsafe water, communities ravaged by HIV / AIDS, families caught in the grip of poverty. There are many areas where solutions to the education crisis lie, such as providing school meals or improving access to secure water,etc.
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