SOCIAL JUSTICE & HUMAN RIGHTS: Lack of access to education for girls worldwide.

Written by:

Eva Galleazzi Bruno

Student

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If you live in a relatively developed country, chances are that every day when you wake up you go to school, or if you are an adult, you bring your child to school. However, you must be aware that not everyone has the chance to do so. Millions of girls around the globe do not have the opportunity to attend school. This is clearly an issue and teens and adults have a moral responsibility to get involved and generate change for the best.

In the following web article, you will understand the importance of the topic at hand, its causes and consequences and some actions that have already been carried out to find a solution to give all girls around the world the right of education that we all deserve.

Why is the lack of education for girls a pressing matter?

It is crucial for society to resolve this matter in order to reduce gender inequality gaps, and give all girls the basic right of education. All women and girls should be given the right to gain valuable skills and knowledge in order to become an impactful citizen; a right that has been given to men with no major fights. Women and girls should also be given the equal opportunity to apply to the same jobs as men with no discrimination or unfair difficulty. Girls who receive an education are more independent and are able to partake in decisions that directly affect them, their families, their communities and their future. Moreover, the right to education based on non-discrimination and equality is recognized under the human rights law. In fact, already existing international treaties specifically target gender equality in education. Gender inequalities in education affect 32.1 million of girls worldwide. Adults and young adults are the factors of change who need to step in to generate an increase in girls’ education worldwide.

Causes leading to the lack of education for girls:

According to researcher Bacher Andreas, there isn’t one specific reason to explain this educational inequality, but instead many causes that need to be analyzed at a much deeper level, as he does in his article, in which he takes a look at 42 different causes that all lead to a lack of education for girls in the world, including economic, cultural and social elements.

Even though we often associate poverty as the main reason for this inequality gap, it is certainly not the only one. For starters, the child’s situation can play a big role: orphanism, homelessness and parenting are all involved. In fact, oftentimes homeless or orphan children do not have people to care for them and they need to work to survive, therefore leaving them no time to attend school.

Parenting is also a crucial factor as it has been demonstrated that the more parents are careless, the more their child will have lower levels of education. On another note, cultural factors such as religion are also a cause, as sometimes the parents’ religious beliefs may directly or indirectly go against educational goals. This comes to be particularly true for girls. Conflicts, wars and terrorism as well as all types of natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes or tsunamis, are also obviously closely related to the lack of education for girls, as they affect individual safety and destroy public infrastructures. Then, in some areas there is a serious insufficient amount of capital dedicated to education, which causes poor educational infrastructure, as well as low qualified teachers and inadequate learning materials.

Consequences of not educating girls:

The lack of access to education results in missed opportunities, as there are high costs of not educating girls. Indeed, it has been proven that imposing limitations for girls by impeding them to complete 12 years of education, causes countries to lose as much as $30 trillion dollars due to the loss of lifetime productivity and earnings. This clearly indicates that elementary education alone is not enough, as it only offers limited benefits.

Depriving girls from education results in six areas of global impact. Indeed, women who have been given the opportunity to receive secondary school education, earn almost twice as much compared to those who did not receive any education. This can be noticed by comparing earnings and standards of living. Moreover, giving all girls access to secondary education could diminish the global population, by eliminating child marriage and lowering fertility rates. It is also to note that granting girls this basic right, could increase their knowledge on diseases such as HIV or AIDS, therefore enabling them to make their own decisions when it comes to healthcare.

Finally, universal secondary education for girls increases women's ability to assess institutions and services. It is crucial to understand that no country can reach its full potential without getting girls into school, as it is a main factor of growth.

Developed countries in action:

Developed countries are a major factor when it comes to making a change, as they have the resources necessary to implement programs, provide funds and create an impact. Two powerful countries, the United Kingdom and the United States help us understand how the involvement or disinvolvement of developed countries affects access to education in less developed countries.

The UK case:

When looking at the case of the United Kingdom, we can understand how crucial their involvement was to aid Pakistan’s education. In fact, according to the article, the UK implemented the Girls’ Education Action Plan (GOAL), which “will support 250,000 marginalized children to enroll and remain in school, and an additional 150,000 girls to read by the age of 10”. This source explains that GOAL focuses on making education much more inclusive, by making sure that children receive an education that matches their learning levels.

The USA case:

When analyzing the United States’ case, we understand the effects that specific decisions can have on major issues such as the lack of education for girls worldwide. More specifically, this source talks about Michelle Obama’s “Let girls learn” program, in which, according to the source, “federal agencies were directed to put additional resources toward helping girls attend school”. The source explains that when there is a change of government leaders, different approaches are taken to resolve a problem, and the importance of specific problems can be viewed differently from individual to individual.

This makes us understand that governments and leaders play a fundamental role in improving the lives of many girls.

The impact of Non-Governmental Organizations:

Throughout the world there are various NGOs which work daily to ensure that girls and women around the world are treated fairly. This includes allowing and facilitating access to education. Some widely known and important NGOs include the United Nations, and its several agencies, such as UNICEF and UNESCO.

United Nations:

The Education Cannot Wait (ECW) fund, is the global fund for education created by the UN. Since becoming operational in 2017, nearly 7 million children and adolescents, with 48.4% of those being girls, have benefited from the ECW investments. Moreover, grants by the ECW allow for better levels of academic and social learning. With the ECW, the UN has the opportunity to create a real impact as it provides funding and teacher training, which demonstrates an increase in knowledge, and capacity, and shows that governments are not the only ones that can make a difference, as various NGOs and IGOs can do it as well.

Unicef:

UNICEF works to enhance girls’ education by removing gender stereotypes present in any learning materials, addressing discriminatory gender norms, and supporting governments to ensure that educational plans strengthen gender equality. Moreover, Unicef carries out specific actions such as promoting measures of social protection, and focusing on gender-sensitive teacher training.

Unesco:

Unesco emphasizes actions carried out by a single person, Malala, who symbolizes a great factor of change when talking about girls’ education. It focuses on the UNESCO Malala Fund for Girls’ Right to Education, which works on expanding girls’ access to education in safe learning environments, especially in those countries where conflict, disaster and gender inequality are present. Programs have been implemented to facilitate access to education for girls, by fortifying safe learning environments and gender sensitive learning processes. Malala influenced the United Nations, and more particularly UNESCO to take action.

Finally, the causes, consequences and the actions that have been carried out by developed countries, NGOs or individuals are living proof that things can be done in order to enhance education for girls. Causes and consequences discussed above demonstrate that even if not often discussed, this issue is still present, and that it is the moral responsibility of those actors that have the resources and capacities to take action, in order to minimize the educational gender inequality gap and increase the access of education for girls globally. It is true that developed countries and NGOs are crucial, but individual actions also do matter a lot as Malala has demonstrated. Teenagers, young adults or adults are all capable of creating and being the change for millions of girls across countries, all it takes is to get up and get involved, spread awareness, get educated on the matter, share concerns on the web, or even contact and assemble people to discuss and implement possible solutions. In the end, young adults and adults in developed countries simply cannot stay quiet.