Global Female Education Improves Lives

Written by Elizabeth Fordham Tuesday, January 11 2011

There is no more effective strategy to advance the status of the world’s women than education. Not only does education open the door of opportunity for women – to better jobs, to higher income, to greater social and political participation –educating women and girls can create a ripple effect of positive change across entire families, communities, and countries.

The powerful impact of women’s education on all indicators of social development is well documented. Educating women and girls is linked to improvements in child and family health and nutrition; increases in school enrollment; protection against HIV infection; higher maternal and child life expectancy; reduced fertility rates; and delayed marriage.

Female education improves lives, and it can help save lives. A child born to a mother who can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past age 5. Research published by The Lancet last September shows that 4.2 million fewer children died in 2009 because women received more schooling.

The returns on women’s and girls’ education are many and they are proven. Yet, despite these proven benefits, millions of women and girls remain excluded from education and the opportunities it brings.

Last year, UNESCO published a major new report, “2010 Global Education Digest,” on global trends in gender equality in education. It gives some reasons for hope – but certainly no grounds for complacency.

First: the good news. There have been remarkable advances, in particular since 2000, when the world’s governments placed gender equality at the heart of efforts to end poverty as enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals. Since then, many countries – notably many of the poorest nations such as Ethiopia, Liberia, Nepal, and Yemen – have significantly narrowed gender gaps in education, especially at the primary level.

Gaps in learning achievement and completion also are closing. Research shows that girls are no longer systematically performing at a lower level than boys in science and math. Moreover, once girls enter school they are more likely than boys to complete a full course of primary education and less likely to repeat grades. These are all positive trends.

Yet we are still a long way from equality. Globally, around 37 million girls in the world today do not go to primary school. In 2000, governments promised to eliminate gender disparities within primary and secondary education by 2005.

We are well past the deadline and some two-thirds of all countries still face gender gaps; as many as half will not achieve equality by 2015.

Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab states see the highest rates of exclusion, though the deepest gender gap is found in a South Asian country – Afghanistan, where girls account for just 38 percent of the primary school population.

The consequences of such exclusion are reflected in the persistently high rate of adult female illiteracy.

Global progress on literacy has been painfully slow. Women account for two-thirds of the 796 million adults in the world today who cannot read or write – a figure unchanged for decades.

In Afghanistan, the systematic exclusion of girls from school has left more than 85 percent of adult women without basic literacy. This is not a viable basis for building freedom and democracy.

Getting more girls into the classroom is important. But this is only the first hurdle. We also need to make sure that they stay there and learn. Schools should be places where social inequalities are transcended. Yet all too often education systems reinforce discrimination. Gender stereotyping in textbooks; gender-based violence in schools; overcrowded classrooms; and poor sanitation – these are among the many factors that prevent girls from realizing their full potential.

I have focused on inequalities in basic education because it’s exclusion at this early age that sets so many young girls on the course for a lifetime of disadvantage. Those regions with the weakest record in primary school tend to fare even worse at the higher levels.

In many parts of the world, transition to the secondary level remains fragile. Early marriage, teen marriage, forced labor, and entrenched gender roles force too many girls out of the system when they hit puberty. In sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than one-third of girls enjoy access to secondary schooling. And disparities against girls have actually worsened since 2000.

This is a deeply worrying trend – in particular when we consider the immensely positive impact secondary education can have on the life chances of women and their families. UNESCO estimates that 1.8 million children’s lives could have been saved in Africa in 2008 if their mothers had had at least a secondary education.

When we look at tertiary levels, the picture is even more disturbing. There has been much talk in recent years of the feminization of higher education. Much of it is misleading. The global disparity in favor of women masks deep regional differences. In much of the developing world, women remain underrepresented. In Africa, just 4 percent of girls enter higher education.

Little progress has been made in breaking the glass ceiling in science and technology, and the gender gap clearly reappears at the most advanced levels. Women account for only 14 percent of researchers worldwide. In today’s knowledge economies, this has profound implications for women’s professional development and employment opportunities.