The fact that 39 million girls fail to attend primary school is both a tragedy for the girls themselves and a disaster for development. An increase of just 1% in the number of girls with secondary education boosts annual per capita income growth by 0.3% while additional schooling directly leads to improved levels of family planning.
Providing girls with an education:
- gives them better opportunities to earn higher wages and to participate in the community - An extra year of school can mean an extra 10 to 20% per cent in wages
- reduces the probability of child mortality by 5 to 10%
- makes them more informed about health risks such as HIV and AIDS
- means that they are more likely to marry later, have fewer, healthier and better-nourished children
- breaks the cycle of poverty as women put an average of 90% of their earnings back into the family and are more likely to send their own children to school.
Getting girls into school
Inequality for girls and women continues to hold back progress in education. Too often women are expected to stay at home and complete domestic tasks rather than go to school. The pressures on girls to marry and the impacts of early pregnancy also mean that many girls drop out of education before reaching secondary level.
We will work to get more girls into the classroom, making sure that at least half of the nine million primary school children we will get into school over the next four years are female.
In Nigeria, for example, UK aid will help girls to participate in education by giving 60,000 families cash grants that cover the money girls would earn if they were at work on the condition that they attend school and complete their education. This money will help to free them from the need to help support the family and give them the time to study. Overall in Nigeria, UK aid aims to get 600,000 more girls into school by 2015.
We are making girls' access to education a priority – ensuring more girls go to both primary and secondary school in more than three-quarters of our focus country programmes.
Keeping girls in school
If we are to see the full benefits from education for millions of girls, we need to see more girls studying for longer and progressing beyond primary level. To do this we need to remove the barriers that prevent girls from staying in school, particularly at secondary level.
For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, only around 30% of secondary school teachers are women. Having female teachers in schools – particularly in Muslim communities – has been proven to increase the number of girls present. Families are more likely to allow girls to enroll in a school where they know they will be taught by a woman.
Abuse and sexual harassment are particular problems for girls. That's why in Ghana, we will provide 60,000 girls with incentives to encourage them to attend and introduce school-based counsellors to tackle the issues head on at the same times as increasing the number of female teachers.
A lack of sufficient sanitation in schools can also be a barrier to girl’s attendance, - especially at secondary school age. An adolescent girl does not want to share a toilet with boys – so having separate toilets helps girls to stay in education for longer.
We are putting girls at the heart of our education work, helping to remove these barriers from the start. So when it comes to building new schools for example, we will ensure that every one has a safe water supply and well maintained toilets, separate for girls and boys, which will encourage more female pupils. And we will also make sure that existing schools are equipped with similar facilities to enable more girls to attend.