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From: America.govCompList@STATE.GOV [mailto:America.govCompList@STATE.GOV]
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 9:04 PM
Subject: Educating Girls: What Works
Educating Girls: What Works
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By Dr. Barbara Herz
Dr. Barbara Herz is a specialist in girls' education policy. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Herz has worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank. At the World Bank, Herz started the Women in Development Division and led the bank's work on education and health in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The Benefits of Girls' Education ( #benefitstext )
Where Girls are Out of School ( #wheretext )
What Hinders Girls' Education ( #hinderstext )
What Works ( #workstext )
THE BENEFITS OF GIRLS' EDUCATION ( #benefitsheader )
The benefits of educating girls - to countries, to families and to girls themselves - are so substantial that some economists, including Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard University president and former director of President Obama's National Economic Council, have stated that educating girls may be the single highest return investment available in the developing world.[1] ( #Note1 ) Educating girls not only stimulates economic growth, it improves the well-being of women and gives them more agency in their communities and countries.[2] ( #Note2 )
What are some of the benefits?
. Higher incomes: World Bank studies find that, on the whole, one more year of primary education beyond the mean boosts a person's eventual wage rate on average by 5 percent to 15 percent, with generally higher returns for girls than for boys.[3] ( #Note3 ) One more year of secondary school beyond the mean boosts a person's eventual wage rate on average by 15 percent to 25 percent, again with a generally higher increase for girls than for boys.[4] ( #Note4 )
. Faster economic growth: Education for men or women generally leads to economic growth.[5] ( #Note5 ) Increasing the number of women with secondary education boosts per capita income growth, as does moving toward parity in the number of years of education for girls and boys.[6] ( #Note6 )
. Food Security: A 63-country study by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that expanded female education resulted in better farming practices, which contributed to about 40 percent of the decline in malnutrition from 1970 to 1995.[7] ( #Note7 )
. Family well-being: Educating girls is the surest path to smaller, healthier and better-educated families. Women spend more time than men do in caring for children. Studies find that resources that women control go more directly to help the family than do the resources that men control. The more education a woman has, the more likely it is she can earn a higher income, which will go to benefit her family. In addition, when women are educated they and their husbands tend to want smaller families and to invest more in the health and education of each child.
-- In countries where three-fourths of women have a secondary education, women typically have two or three children, the children are more likely to attend school and child mortality drops as family income rises.[8] ( #Note8 )
-- According to many studies, a year of schooling for the mother beyond the average in her country cuts infant mortality by 5 percent to 10 percent.[9] ( #Note9 )
-- Where mothers are educated, girls and boys generally go to school longer and study more. Often the mother's education matters more than the father's, especially in countries where the gap in schooling between girls and boys is greatest.[10] ( #Note10 )
-- Girls who are literate, and particularly girls who reach secondary school, are more likely to avoid HIV/AIDS because they can better obtain information, stand up for themselves and take more control of their lives.[11] ( #Note11 )
-- Having smaller, healthier and better educated families in turn helps raise economic productivity, equips people to enter new lines of work, eases environmental pressures and slows population growth, which many countries consider important changes.[12] ( #Note12 )
. Women's own well-being: As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen stresses, when women are educated they gain voice and agency in their lives, giving them more economic opportunities, encouraging women's political participation, and transforming society for the better.[13] ( #Note13 )
These benefits begin sooner than may appear at first glance. Keeping girls in school through 10th-12th grade quickly produces positive changes. These girls do not marry young; they can cope better in the 21st century, help their families, and take better advantage of new opportunities as economic and social circumstances change.
The virtuous circle: The benefits of educating girls start with primary school but rise if girls go to secondary school. As a first step, many countries are striving for universal primary education (UPE), which is one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals along with gender equality. Much progress has been made, but the time has come to press equally for secondary education for girls and boys.
In fact, doing so will help achieve UPE. When secondary education for girls spreads, they can go on to earn higher incomes, assume roles outside of the home or farm and reach parity with boys. Educating greater numbers of women and girls also helps meet the growing need for teachers and health workers, which is crucial for societies in which women and girls must be served by women teachers or doctors.
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