Educating Girls

A self-fulfilling prophecy?
Closing the gender gap
What you can do

On the Indonesian island of Java, the tropical morning is already hot as ten-year-old Anis climbs down from a bicycle-driven rickshaw on the busy street. She joins her friends as they enter school to begin grade five. Anis's mother had to quit school when she was ten, to help support her family by selling homemade tofu. She and Anis's father share a small dirt-floored home with extended family. They have scrimped and saved to pay for Anis's tuition, books and uniform. They share Anis's dream that she might one day become a doctor.

In Canada, primary school is almost free, and children have to go. But in many countries throughout the world, going to school is a privilege. This is especially true for girls. In the developing world, more than 113 million children-nearly two thirds of them girls-don't have access to a formal education. Of all students who do start school, one third drop out before the fifth grade. Again, most are girls.

Yet investment in girls' education is the single most effective way to reduce poverty. Educated girls marry later. They have fewer and healthier children. They are better able to care for their children and to provide for their families and themselves. They are more likely to send their own children to school.

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A self-fulfilling prophecy?

Discrimination against girls begins at an early age. Social customs often give preference to boys. If poor parents can't afford fees for all their children, they send their boys to school. If poor communities can't afford to build separate schools for boys and girls, they favour boys. Girl children often have domestic work and responsibilities that leave little time for school. Families living with HIV/AIDS usually rely on girl children to replace sick adults.

Poverty often prevents parents from paying school fees, and buying uniforms and books. Support services for students, especially child care and safe travel, are expensive and rare. Even when girls make it to school, they often drop out, because the schools don't meet their needs. The teachers, curriculum and textbooks frequently reinforce gender stereotypes. The lack of female teachers can make girls feel less secure. There may be no sanitation facilities in or near the school. Girl students are especially susceptible to sexual and emotional harassment.

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"Investment in girls' education is the single most effective way to reduce poverty."

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Closing the gender gap

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) recognizes that basic education is a human right. So does the international Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 28). CIDA has been helping to educate girls in developing countries for more than 30 years. Through its Action Plan on Basic Education, CIDA supports the following international goals:

• to ensure access to free and compulsory primary education for all by 2015;
• to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005;
• to improve the quality of basic education for all learners.

The widest gender gaps in education exist in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. In rural Bangladesh for example, more than 85 percent of people are illiterate. Neglect of girls begins at an early age. So CIDA provides basic education through non-formal classes of 8- to 10-year-olds; 70 percent are girls. The lessons are taught close to home for only three hours a day. So if girls are needed at home, they can still attend class. Nearly 90 percent of the 1.2 million graduates have gone on to continue their education in regular government schools.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the gender gap is less acute. In fact, in some countries, more girls are enrolled in school than boys. Here, the bigger problems are gender stereotypes in the curriculum and a lack of female role models to inspire girls. To change this, CIDA is improving teacher training, curriculum and materials, and public awareness. For example, amid the dense equatorial rainforest in the interior of Guyana, where the rivers act as highways, local Amerindian women teach the children, using what little education they have. CIDA provides professional training to help these women to become certified teachers. Both boys and girls benefit, since they do not have to leave home to seek a better life.

Elsewhere, different techniques are used. When the Taliban government ruled Afghanistan, forbidding girls to attend school and women to teach, girls were taught by radio. In the southern African country of Zambia, local camps are set up to teach girls. Basic education needn't cost much. Indeed, the cost of not educating girls is far too high for communities in developing countries and around the world to overlook.



What you can do

• Get informed. Learn more about the need to educate girls. Visit UNICEF's youth site on girls' education.
• Get connected. Volunteer with a Canadian NGO that helps to educate girls in developing countries e.g., World University Service of Canada (WUSC) or Oxfam Canada. Or promote literacy in your community - visit World Literacy of Canada.
• Make a difference. Support the Global Campaign for Education or the Global March for girls' education.
• Above all, appreciate and make the best use of your own education!

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To view this video, you will need Real Player.

This video clip shows students in a one room school house just outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. This is a CIDA funded project called COPE which is being implemented by CARE. The project reaches out to girls who were not allowed any type of education during the Taliban regime. The girls attend class for four hours a day. All the teachers are there on a volunteer basis.

Video length: 32 seconds