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The Right to Education Initiative (RTE) is a global human rights organisation focusing on the right to education. (Supported by ActionAid International, Amnesty International, Global Campaign for Education, Save the Children, and Human Rights Watch.)

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Today more girls than ever go to school. However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, poverty, and disability, in the equal enjoyment of the right to quality education. This includes barriers, at all levels, to access quality education and within education systems, institutions, and classrooms, such as, amongst others:

The international community has recognised the equal right to quality education of everyone and committed to achieving gender equality in all fields, including education, through their acceptance of international human rights law. This means that states have legal obligations to remove all discriminatory barriers, whether they exist in law or in everyday life, and to undertake positive measures to bring about equality, including in access of, within, and through education.

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Today more girls than ever go to school. However, despite progress, women and girls continue to face multiple barriers based on gender and its intersections with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, poverty, and disability, in the equal enjoyment of the right to quality education.

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The Guardian | Why Girls in India Are Still Missing Out on the Education They Need

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The Guardian | Why Girls in India Are Still Missing Out on the Education They Need

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India is no longer considered a poor country and yet many children do not receive a good education. This article talks about females experiencing difficult situations.

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Meena (not her real name) didn't tell her parents when the older boys started harassing her on the hour-long walk to school from her home in Madanpur Khadar, south Delhi - grabbing her hand and shouting "kiss me" - because she knew she would get the blame, as if she had somehow encouraged them. She was right: when her family found out, they banned her from going back to school, worried about the effect on their "honour" if she was sexually assaulted. The plan now is to get her married. She is 16.

Gulafsha is luckier: her mother is determined she will become a doctor. But there are 70 pupils in a class at her school, and the teachers often simply don't turn up. The drinking water tanks are so filthy the pupils bring their own water. "I have never gone to a toilet at school in all these years, they are so bad," the 14-year-old says. She doesn't know how, but somehow her mother saves 900 rupees a month to pay for private tuition in three subjects.

Sumen, 35, is battling for her child's future, too. Her nine-year-old son has learning disabilities and she has tried and failed to get him into school every year since he was old enough. Finally, the authorities have agreed he should get some education, but it's only for one day a week. Sumen, a domestic help who never went to school herself, wonders if she should have tried to teach him at home: "But if I haven't studied, how much could I do for him?"

Four years ago, the World Bank upgraded India from a "poor" country to a middle-income one. As commentators were at pains to point out in November, when the UK announced it would end aid to India from 2015, the country has a space programme, 48 billionaires and its own aid budget. Under its Right to Education (RTE) Act, passed in 2009, a free and compulsory education is guaranteed for all children aged between six and 14, and the most recent figures for primary school enrolment stand at an impressive-sounding 98%.

But going to school, as those monitoring progress on the millennium development goal of achieving universal primary education have increasingly realised, is one thing: the quality of the education you get is another. Within government schools pupils face numerous challenges, says Oxfam India's Anjela Taneja. Overcrowded classrooms, absent teachers and unsanitary conditions are common complaints, and can lead parents to decide it is not worth their child going to school.

A 2010 report by the National Council for Teacher Education estimated that an additional 1.2 million teachers were needed to fulfil the RTE Act requirements, and last year the RTE Forum, a civil society collective of around 10,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), found that only 5% of government schools complied with all the basic standards for infrastructure set by the act. Some 40% of primaries had more than 30 students per classroom, and 60% didn't have electricity. The RTE Forum also reported official figures showing that 21% of teachers weren't professionally trained.

Earlier this year, the independent Annual Status of Education Report into rural schools found declining levels of achievement, with more than half of children in standard five - aged around 10 - unable to read a standard two-level text. "If you want to end child labour, you have to fix the education system," Taneja says. "People are aware of what education is and what it is not."

Nor do enrolment figures necessarily reflect who is actually attending school, she says. The number of primary age children not in school in India was put at 2.3 million in 2008, but other estimates suggest it could be as high as 8 million. According to an Indian government report, the primary drop-out rate in 2009 was 25%.

It is girls, and marginalised groups such as the very poor and the disabled, who are often left behind. While girls attend primary school in roughly equal numbers to boys, the gap widens as they get older and more are forced to drop out to help with work at home or get married.

Of the out-of-school children in 2008, 62% were girls; they make up two-thirds of illiterate 15- to 24-year-olds. And two-thirds of those not in school were from those lowest in the caste system, tribal groups and Muslim communities, despite those historically oppressed groups making up only 43% of India's children. Meanwhile, neighbourhood "low-budget" private schools serving low-income families desperate - like Gulafsha's mother - to provide their children with a "quality" education have mushroomed. But they are unregulated, and can lack trained teachers and proper infrastructure, says Taneja.

Madanpur Khadar, a "resettlement colony" begun in 2000 to house families moved on from newly cleared slums, has 145,000 residents. But the number of plots given out for homes is only really enough to accommodate around 60,000 to 70,000 people, explains Alok Thakur of Efrah (Empowerment for Rehabilitation, Academic & Health), a grassroots organisation working to promote socio-economic development in some of Delhi's poorest areas.

The buildings are made of brick, but 90% of households have no toilets, Thakur says. The sewers running along the edges of the bumpy, often unmade streets are only partially covered. Here and there great piles of glistening, treacle-dark sludge have apparently been dredged out. Animals root through heaps of rotting rubbish, and one large open space has become a shallow lake of foul-smelling filth. Pigs snuffle at the detritus littering its margins.

Kamlesh's hands quiver as she reads her testimony, the microphone bouncing her words off the surrounding buildings. Efrah has organised a "jan sunvai", or public hearing, giving residents the chance to air their grievances about the colony to a panel of experts, and the 35-year-old mother is speaking on education. At the area's three primary schools, the students number 2,176, 1,148 and 1,311, her submission says. They have 33, 14 and 20 teachers respectively. The quality and quantity of teaching is insufficient.

Inside one of the schools, some of the gloomy, bare-walled classrooms have low benches and desks. In others, the little girls sit on the floor, books in their laps. In several, no teacher is present; one man appears to be responsible for three of the small rooms. When the heavy metal gates at the entrance are opened at the end of the school day, an incredible crush of children pours into the squelchy mud of the lane outside.

Back at the hearing, the kind of street harassment suffered by Meena - sometimes referred to as "Eve-teasing" - and its effect on girls' education is another major concern. The brutal gang rape and murder of a Delhi student in December sparked protests across the country calling for changes in cultural attitudes and policing, but young women here say they feel scared by the way some men behave. "We complain to the police and [they] stand where they are and watch the girls being teased," Meenakshi, 18, tells the audience.

A series of measures have been brought in since the December attack aimed at making women safer, but despite these, there has been a spate of attacks on women in Delhi since the beginning of March, including four reported assaults on girls under 18. Only a fraction of such attacks are reported.

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a coalition of 26 NGOs and teaching unions, wants all nations to allocate at least 6% of GDP to education. India has been promising that since 1968, Taneja says, but the figure has never topped 4%, and it is currently 3.7%. It is an issue of political will, rather than a lack of cash, she suggests: education is not a vote-winning issue in a system of frequent elections, where pledges need to be deliverable immediately.

Nor do policymakers have a personal stake: the political classes don't tend to send their children to government schools. "It seems to me we can afford everything else," Taneja notes.

As the 2015 deadline for the millennium goal on primary education looms, the experiences of girls and women such as Meena, Gulafsha and Sumen have a particular resonance. On current trends, a Unesco-commissioned report concluded in October, the goal will be missed "by a large margin".

Progress was initially rapid, but has stalled since 2008, and 61 million children remain out of education. But as thoughts turn to replacement goals, attention is focusing not just on how to reach the remaining children, but on those who are now going to school but simply aren't learning, says Save the Children's Will Paxton, who leads on policy for the GCE UK. "The scale of the issue is pretty enormous," he says. "Not least because if they don't learn anything they disengage and drop out."

Targets to tackle inequality in who gets to go to school, and to push nations to help the most marginalised young people in education, will be another GCE focus. "Our argument is that the existing MDG doesn't really do enough to provide a strong incentive to worry about the hard-to-reach groups," Paxton says.

Meena, who comes from a Dalit family - the caste formerly known as "untouchables"- had imagined herself working for the police, or becoming a teacher. "My parents are looking for a boy for me," she says. "They say I can get married and then I can study. But I know that once I get married, it will become very difficult. My dream will never come true."
Some names have been changed
* Rachel Williams's trip was funded by the Global Campaign for Education UK and the National Union of Teachers

What we learned in Delhi, by Millie and Sam

Since returning from Delhi, Millie Wells has thought about girls like Meena a lot. "I was just walking to school and thinking how different my life is from hers," she says. "It's really hard to comprehend."

Millie, 15, from Ringwood school in Hampshire, and fellow pupil Sam Whittingham, 14, won the Steve Sinnott award to become 2013's young ambassadors for the Send My Friend to School campaign.

They travelled to Delhi to find out what stops children getting a good education, and now, armed with compelling first-hand accounts, will encourage other young people to lobby UK politicians on pushing for universal primary education.

Sam was impressed by the differences being made to children's lives by the projects he saw. "They knew they couldn't change everything in one go, but they helped small groups to chip away at the problem," he says.

The public hearing in Madanpur Khadar sticks in Millie's mind. "The people spoke with so much passion," she remembers. "They were trying to cope with what they had and campaign within their own community. It was amazing."
For free Send My Friend to School 2013 school packs and resources go to sendmy friend.org Topics

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Why girls in India are still missing out on the education they need

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Meena (not her real name) didn't tell her parents when the older boys started harassing her on the hour-long walk to school from her home in Madanpur Khadar, south Delhi - grabbing her hand and shouting "kiss me" - because she knew she would get the blame, as if she had somehow encouraged them.

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Alternet | Why Girls Around the World Don't Get to Go to School

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Alternet | Why Girls Around the World Don't Get to Go to School

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Knowledge is power. So it's no wonder that, all around the world, a girl has less of both. This article explains the main reasons of why girl's around the world don't get to go to school.

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Knowledge is power. So it's no wonder that, all around the world, a girl has less of both.

She might risk violent attack each time she ventures outdoors to attend class, or her family might not be able to afford a uniform or school fees. In most countries, barriers of all kinds still stand between girls and school, blocking young women from the most basic form of social advancement.

All that lost potential loomed large over the United Nations General Assembly this week as leaders gathered to assess progress toward the Millennium Development Goals.

Ten years after the international community vowed to incorporate gender equity into its development agenda, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (a research arm of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), presents an incomplete grade:

Two out of three countries in the world face gender disparities in primary and secondary education and as many as half will not achieve the goal of gender parity in education by 2015.

Educational equity holds a unique place among the Millennium Development Goals. While public health and anti-poverty initiatives help provide a baseline of social stability, education is perhaps the only resource that addresses the roots of social impoverishment and moves a country toward real self-sufficiency. Conversely, the education gender gap could further entrench gender oppression, even as a country advances its overall economic development.

The crisis doesn't stem only from institutionalized sexism; it represents years of neglect by rich countries to invest in women's advancement. In an announcement of the report, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova remarked:

The advances made in improving girls' and women's access to education and training over the past decades risk being undermined by reductions in international aid and national investments as the world struggles to cope with inter-locking crises. Yet, we all know that compromising the education of girls and women will only lead to more vulnerability and reinforce the vicious cycle of poverty.

Education inequity at the elementary-school level sets boys and girls down increasingly divergent paths in life. Researchers note:

Globally, girls are more likely to never enter primary school than boys. In South and West Asia, only about 87 girls start primary school for every 100 boys, according to UIS data. The situation is not much better in sub-Saharan Africa, where about 93 girls begin their primary education for every 100 boys, according to the regional average.

Down the road, higher education is pushed even farther out of reach:

In countries, such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea and Niger... there are fewer than 35 female tertiary students for every 100 male students. On the other hand, in wealthy countries, female students clearly outnumber men as tertiary students.

Educational barriers vary widely in form and impact. At the high-school level, for instance, girls actually have greater education access than boys in about 30 percent of countries, though UNESCO says that in terms of the enrollment gap, "disparities against girls in secondary education are more severe than those against boys." Once they start school, girls hold an edge over boys in completing their studies rather than dropping out. The statistics suggest that in many cases, after initial barriers are overcome, women tend to stick with school, perhaps reflecting an understanding of how a single diploma can open other crucial doors to economic and civic participation.

For millions of girls, however, gender barriers in the classroom, in the home and in the workplace all cruelly reinforce one another. According to the study:

As girls enter puberty they "hit the wall of culture"... Emotional and physical dangers may increase for girls as they grow into young women due to sexual harassment and assault and social demands for conformity to normative gender roles. Both the daily journey to school and the school environment itself may be unsafe for girls and young women in communities around the world.... Traditional conceptions of "proper" roles for both women and men are more pronounced in technical and vocational education than in general education,... reflecting that resistance to boundary crossing in occupational activities still exists.

As global development marches on and women's progress lags in comparison, the struggle for educational parity is a lesson in the political economy of intellect. Knowledge is power, and putting knowledge in the right hands can break power unjustly held.
This article first appeared on Ms. blog.

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Why Girls Around the World Don't Get to Go to School

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Knowledge is power. So it's no wonder that, all around the world, a girl has less of both. She might risk violent attack each time she ventures outdoors to attend class, or her family might not be able to afford a uniform or school fees.

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Since the year 2000, the World’s Children’s Prize program has educated and empowered over 40,6 million children.

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"Why can't girls go to school?" - World's Children's Prize

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Sakena Yacoobi's goal is to make sure that there isn't a single girl in Afghanistan who is not allowed to go to school to learn to read.

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This is the website of a popular IGO that supports gender equality.

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On 6 February, two massive earthquakes devastated southeastern Türkiye and northwestern Syria, leaving tens of thousands dead and many more injured. As the death toll continues to rise, survivors are facing freezing temperatures without shelter, clothes or food. UN Women is on the ground, responding to immediate humanitarian needs and developing longer-term recovery strategies that ensure women's agency and leadership. Support women, girls and families in Türkiye and Syria today.

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UN Women is the global champion for gender equality, working to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can exercise her human rights and live up to her full potential. We are trusted partners for advocates and decision-makers from all walks of life, and a leader in the effort to achieve gender equality.

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These are the results for gender equality in the South China Morning Post.
(It's useful!)

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News and analysis on women's rights, the gender gap, LGBTI issues, sexual harassment, sexual minorities and masculinity in Asia and beyond.

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In the U.S. and around the world, Save the Children gives children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.

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Every Girl Deserves a Chance to Learn

A girl is not a statistic or a piece of property. She's a child who deserves a future.

Girls the world over face discrimination - just for being born a daughter and not a son. A girls education is less likely to be valued, and she's more likely to be forced into early marriage, face violence or be stolen by traffickers. Her childhood cut short - her very life and future at risk.

A girl's education changes everything. An educated girl is more likely to grow up healthy, safe and empowered to determine the course of her life and future. She'll decide when she's ready for marriage and children. She'll likely send her children to school - and even live a longer life.

We understand the importance of education for girl children. We do whatever it takes to ensure every last child has a chance to grow up healthy, educated and safe - her best chance for a bright future.

With your help, we can educate girls who may not otherwise have the chance to learn - changing the course of their lives, their children's lives and the future of their communities.

Every Last Child Campaign

Save the Children's Every Last Child campaign aims to reach the most vulnerable children, those left behind by the world's progress in child health, education and protection - including girls. Too many girls, because of who they are or where they're born, face unique challenges. Together, we will improve girls education. We will reach every last girl, empowering her to grow up healthy, educated and safe. Free to lead her own life, speak her mind and determine her future.

Did You Know?

One girl under age 15 is married every seven seconds.

Girls are 3X more likely to be out of school*

Girls are 2X more likely to die from malnutrition*

Girls are 2X more likely to be subjected to sexual violence*

Girls are 2X more likely to get coerced into trafficking*

*Sources: U.N. Foundation; Girls Not Brides

Roja's Story: The Importance of Education For Girls

In Cambodia, nearly 23% of children are out of school. Even more shocking, 52 out of 1,000 girls become adolescent mothers. These are girls denied the opportunities they deserve - and forced to grow up far too fast.

But innocent, eager Roja, age 5, is on the path to a brighter future. She attends a Save the Children early childhood development center near her village. There, we encourage her early learning and development, including drawing and art to enhance creativity. We also train teachers and involve parents, caregivers and whole communities in encouraging girls education and learning opportunities.

Your donation can help educate girls like Roja - giving her best chance for the bright future she deserves.

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A girl is not a statistic or a piece of property. She's a child who deserves a future. Girls the world over face discrimination - just for being born a daughter and not a son. A girls education is less likely to be valued, and she's more likely to be forced into early marriage, face violence or be stolen by traffickers.

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Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in low-income countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.

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Rooms to Read is a leading non-profit focused on girls' education and children's literacy in Asia and Africa. Learn more, donate, and get involved.

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GPE has adopted as its vision the new Global Goal for education, calling for inclusive, equitable quality education for all by 2030.

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GPE is the only multilateral partnership devoted to getting all children in school for a quality education. Learn more about what we do and how GPE adds value.

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The World Bank Group is a unique global partnership: five institutions working for sustainable solutions that reduce poverty and build shared prosperity in developing countries.

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Ensuring that all girls and young women receive a quality education is their human right, a global development priority, and a strategic priority for the World Bank.

Achieving gender equality is central to the World Bank Group twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. As the largest financing development partner in education globally, the World Bank ensures that all of its education projects are gender-sensitive, and works to overcome barriers that are preventing girls and boys from equally benefiting from countries' investments in education.

Girls' education goes beyond getting girls into school. It is also about ensuring that girls learn and feel safe while in school; have the opportunity to complete all levels of education, acquiring the knowledge and skills to compete in the labor market; gain socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to a changing world; make decisions about their own lives; and contribute to their communities and the world.

Both individuals and countries benefit from girls' education. Better educated women tend to be more informed about nutrition and healthcare, have fewer children, marry at a later age, and their children are usually healthier, should they choose to become mothers. They are more likely to participate in the formal labor market and earn higher incomes. A recent World Bank study estimates that the "limited educational opportunities for girls, and barriers to completing 12 years of education, cost countries between US$15 trillion1 and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings." All these factors combined can help lift households, communities, and countries out of poverty.
The Challenge
According to UNESCO estimates, around the world, 129 million girls are out of school, including 32 million of primary school age, and 97 million of secondary school age.

Globally, primary, and secondary school enrollment rates are getting closer to equal for girls and boys (90% male, 89% female). But while enrollment rates are similar - in fact, two-thirds of all countries have reached gender parity in primary school enrollment - completion rates for girls are lower in low-income countries where 63% of female primary school students complete primary school, compared to 67% of male primary school students. In low-income countries, secondary school completion rates for girls also continue to lag, with only 36% of girls completing lower secondary school compared to 44% of boys. Upper secondary completion rates have similar disparities in lower income countries, the rate is 26% for young men and 21% for young women.

The gaps are starker in countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). In FCV countries, girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys, and at the secondary level, are 90% more likely to be out of secondary school than those in non-FCV contexts.

Both girls and boys are facing a learning crisis. Learning Poverty (LP) measures the share of children who are not able to read proficiently at age 10. While girls are on average 4 percentage points less learning-poor than boys, the rates remain very high for both groups. The average of Learning Poverty in in low- and middle- income countries is 55% for females, and 59% for males. The gap is narrower in low-income countries, where Learning Poverty averages about 93% for both boys and girls.

In many countries, enrollment in tertiary education slightly favors young women, however, better learning outcomes are not translating into better work and life outcomes for women. There is a large gender gap in labor force participation rates globally. It is especially stark in regions such as South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, which have some of the lowest female labor force participation rates at 24% and 20% per region, respectively. These are appallingly low rates, considering what is observed in other regions like Latin America (53%) or East Asia (59%), which are still below rates for men.

Gender bias within schools and classrooms may also reinforce messages that affect girls' ambitions, their own perceptions of their roles in society, and produce labor market engagement disparities and occupational segregation. When gender stereotypes are communicated through the design of school and classroom learning environments or through the behavior of faculty, staff, and peers in a child's school, it goes on to have sustained impact on academic performance and choice of field of study, especially negatively affecting young women pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

Poverty is one of the most important factors for determining whether a girl can access and complete her education. Studies consistently reinforce that girls who face multiple disadvantages - such as low family income, living in remote or underserved locations or who have a disability or belong to a minority ethno-linguistic group - are farthest behind in terms of access to and completion of education.

Violence also prevents girls from accessing and completing education - often girls are forced to walk long distances to school placing them at an increased risk of violence and many experience violence while at school. Most recent data estimates that approximately 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to or at school every year. This often has serious consequences for their mental and physical health and overall well-being while also leading to lower attendance and higher dropout rates. An estimated 246 million children experience violence in and around school every year, ending school-related gender-based violence is critical. Adolescent pregnancies can be a result of sexual violence or sexual exploitation. Girls who become pregnant often face strong stigma, and even discrimination, from their communities. The burden of stigma, compounded by unequal gender norms, can lead girls to drop out of school early and not return.

Child marriage is also a critical challenge. Girls who marry young are much more likely to drop out of school, complete fewer years of education than their peers who marry later. They are also more likely to have children at a young age and are exposed to higher levels of violence perpetrated by their partner. In turn, this affects the education and health of their children, as well as their ability to earn a living. Indeed, girls with secondary schooling are up to six times more likely to marry as those children with little or no education. According to a recent report, more than 41,000 girls under the age of 18 marry every day. Putting an end to this practice would increase women's expected educational attainment, and with it, their potential earnings. According to the report's estimates, ending child marriage could generate more than US$500 billion in benefits annually each year.

COVID-19 is having a negative impact on girls' health and well-being - and many are at risk of not returning to school once they reopen. Available research shows that prevalence of violence against girls and women has increased during the pandemic - jeopardizing their health, safety and overall well-being. As school closures and quarantines were enforced during the 2014‐2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, women and girls experienced more sexual violence, coercion and exploitation. School closures during the Ebola outbreak were associated with an increase in teenage pregnancies. Once schools re-opened, many "visibly pregnant girls" were banned from going back to school. With schools closing throughout the developing world, where stigma around teenage pregnancies prevails, we will probably see an increase in drop-out rates as teenage girls become pregnant or married. As girls stay at home because of school closures, their household work burdens might increase, resulting in girls spending more time helping out at home instead of studying. This might encourage parents, particularly those putting a lower value on girls' education, to keep their daughters at home even after schools reopen. Moreover, research shows that girls risk dropping out of school when caregivers are missing from the household because they typically have to (partly) replace the work done by the missing caregiver, who might be away due to COVID-19-related work, illness, or death. Therefore, with the current COVID-19 pandemic, we might see more girls than boys helping at home, lagging behind with studying, and dropping out of school.

Last Updated: Oct 26, 2021

The World Bank is committed to seeing every girl prosper in her life. Our projects support the education of hundreds of millions of girls and young women across the world. Working through interventions in education, health, social protection, water, infrastructure, and other sectors, we are making an even stronger commitment to support countries in ensuring that every girl receives the quality education she deserves.

Our 180 projects are impacting more than 150 million girls and young women worldwide. Hundreds of millions more have been impacted over the past few decades.

We tackle key barriers that girls and young women face when trying to obtain an education. Guided by evidence on what works for girls' education, our projects use multi-pronged approaches across areas including:
1. Removing barriers to schooling

Addressing financial barriers, through scholarships, stipends, grants, conditional cash transfers

Addressing long distances and lack of safety to and from school by building schools, providing transportation methods for girls to get to school

Addressing a lack of information about returns to girls' education but running community awareness campaigns engaging parents, school leaders, and local community leaders

Working with the community to address and inform on social and cultural norms and perceptions that may prevent girls' education

2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools

By constructing and rehabilitating schools to create safe and inclusive learning environments,

Efforts at the community- and school-levels, and programs to engage the school (including teachers, girls, and boys) in reducing gender-based violence (GBV) and ensuring available mechanisms to report GBV

Support for hygiene facilities and menstrual hygiene management for adolescent girls

3. Improving the quality of education

Investing in teacher professional development, eliminating gender biases in curriculum and teaching practices, and focusing on foundational learning

Adapting teaching and learning materials, and books to introduce gender sensitive language, pictorial aspects, and messaging

4. Developing skills and empowering girls for life and labor market success

Promoting girls' empowerment, skills development programs and social programs

Prioritizing and promoting women in STEM subjects and careers in both traditional and non-traditional sectors

Reducing barriers and providing incentives through scholarships for women to enroll in higher education and TVET programs

Support for childcare programs for women and girls to join the labor market

For more information on our girls' education investment and projects, please read Count Me In: The World Bank Education Global Practice: Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Women, which highlights our decades-long commitment to girls' education, and showcases how Education GP projects are creating opportunities for girls around the world to succeed in their education and beyond.
Last Updated: Oct 26, 2021

The WBG supports girls' education through a variety of interventions. Our focus on girls' education and wellbeing goes beyond school attendance and learning outcomes - we strive to ensure girls have safe, joyful, and inclusive experience with education systems that set them up for success in life and motivate them to become lifelong learners. This approach, reflected in the current Education portfolio impacting at least 150 million girls and young women, prioritizes investments in four key areas listed below.
1. Removing barriers to girls' schooling

Our projects providing stipends to improve primary and secondary school completion for girls and young women in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Sahel benefit close to half a million girls.

Our Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project in Angola will use a variety of financial incentives to attract adolescent girls to schools, including scholarships, and new school spaces for girls.

The AGILE (Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment) project in Nigeria is providing conditional cash transfers to households for sending girls to school, removing cost barriers to their education.

The MIQRA (Mali Improving Education Quality and Results for All Project) has a school feeding and nutrition program targeted at retention and attendance for girls in schools.

2. Promoting safe and inclusive schools for girls

In Tanzania, the Bank is supporting the training of a counselor in every school who will provide life-skills training in girls' and boys' clubs - which is important because closing gender gaps is not only about interventions for girls but also for boys.

In Nigeria, female counselors will provide life skills training to about 340,000 girls in safe spaces. Several of our other projects also support the construction of separate sanitary toilets for girls, as well as introducing GBV-reducing and reporting mechanisms in school systems.

3. Improving the quality of education for girls (and boys)

In Ghana, the Accountability and Learning Outcomes Project is conducting teacher training for gender-sensitive instruction, and aims to create guides for teachers to support gender sensitivity in classrooms.

In Honduras, the Early Childhood Education Improvement Project, will create a revised preschool curriculum that will include content on gender equity, inclusion, and violence prevention, as well as training for teachers, including training to combat GBV.

The Girls Empowerment and Quality Education for All Project in Sao Tome & Principe is creating girls' clubs after school, where they are also provided with life skills training, and counseling.

4. Developing skills for life and labor market success for young women

The Nurturing Excellence in Higher Education Project in Nepal is focusing on increasing access to tertiary education for young women from low-income groups, and additional providing scholarships for the poorest applications, alongside communication and advocacy campaigns for more female enrollment in STEM subjects.

The ASSET (Accelerating and Strengthening Skills for Economic Transformation) project in Bangladesh is working to increase the participation of women in skills training programs, and conducting awareness and communications campaigns to address dropout.

In Pakistan, the Higher Education Development project seeks to support women enrolled in STEM programs, with an aim to move them from 2-year to more comprehensive 4-year programs.

The Higher Education Project in Moldova and the Higher Education Modernization Project in Belarus will both support and finance activities to increase enrollment of women in STEM fields. The Côte d'Ivoire Higher Education Development Support Project provides scholarships for women in higher education, and extra tutoring support for females pursuing STEM subjects.

Schemes to increase participation of girls in higher education. Through the Africa Centers of Excellence (ACE) project, the Bank has supported increased enrollment of females in masters and PhD programs. The number of female students in ACE centers was 343 in 2014 and is now 3,400 in 2020; a tenfold increase. The Bank is also building the pipeline of female students interested in computer science and engineering programs and retain them.

For more information on our girls' education investment and projects, please read Count Me In: The World Bank Education Global Practice: Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Women, which highlights our decades-long commitment to girls' education, and showcases how Education GP projects are creating opportunities for girls around the world to succeed in their education and beyond.
Last Updated: Oct 26, 2021

The WBG works closely with governments and other development organizations on girls' education issues to identify and advance interventions that improve girls' education outcomes and provide resources to support countries implementing such initiatives. Partnerships both within and outside of the World Bank are critical to the Education GP's work on girls' education. The Education GP works with other global practices in the Bank to improve girls' education-for example, collaborating with the Water GP for access to sanitation and hygiene in schools, with Social Protection and Jobs GP for challenges related to labor market transition, or Energy GP to improve school safety.

The World Bank collaborates actively with many donors and organizations. As a signatory to the G7 Charlevoix Commitment, the Bank has already committed an estimated $2.5 billion to girls' education in FCV countries as of September 2021-exceeding its pledge of $2.0 billion from 2018 to 2023.

The Education GP:

is collaborating with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office FCDO (UK) about targets and high-level engagement with G7 donors, to support aid and financial commitment for girls' education;

is a member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Girls' EiE Reference Group, which seeks to further research and advocacy for girls' education in emergencies;

a member of the UNESCO Gender Flagship Reference Group and has provided technical contributions to the UNESCO-commissioned study (December 2020-July 2021); and

is working closely with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) as the implementing agency for 54 percent of the total GPE grants of $3.62 billion, that support girls' education.

is a member of the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI), which comprises over 20 partners representing multilateral, bilateral, civil society, and non-governmental organizations.

collaborated with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) to produce Economic Impacts of Child Marriage, a recent report detailing the effects of child marriage, which was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, and GPE.

Last Updated: Oct 26, 2021

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Ensuring that all girls and young women receive a quality education is their human right, a global development priority, and a strategic priority for the World Bank. Achieving gender equality is central to the World Bank Group twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

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People are campaigning in HK about gender equality. It is called #MeToo.

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Gender equality in Hong Kong - why men are part of the solution too

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In her first interview since becoming head of women's rights charity, Fiona Nott talks about progress made, how far Hong Kong still has to go to catch up with other developed economies, and why men are part of the solution

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USAID leads international development and humanitarian efforts to save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance and help people progress beyond assistance.

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Education | U.S. Agency for International Development

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USAID is focused on improving reading skills in primary schools, by strengthening teaching techniques, materials, curricula and tests, so students can quickly master this essential skill; strengthening higher education and workforce development programs, so young people-especially disadvantaged communities and women-can find good jobs and contribute to the economic growth of

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This article talks about gender equality in HK.

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Is gender pay inequality a problem in Hong Kong?

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Despite being an international finance centre that prides itself on a fair and open business environment, the city still sees its working women earn at least thousands of dollars less than their male counterparts on average, according to government figures.

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Women are a vital part of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, increase access to quality health care and expand economic opportunity for all.

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Our programs provide tailored solutions to students facing multiple barriers to education to acquire relevant skills, creating opportunities for positive transitions to secondary school and dignified livelihoods. Our integrated approach is based on extensive research on what works to increase marginalized girls' learning outcomes, retention, and wellbeing.

We put girls at the center of our programs and build a supportive environment for them in the community and at school. At the individual level, CARE helps girls develop their academic competencies alongside leadership and life skills, raising their confidence and voices. At the community level, we work with parents and traditional and religious leaders to shift negative gender and social norms affecting education outcomes, increasing support for girls' education and active participation in school. We work with Ministries of Education and school staff to improve the quality of teaching, strengthen supervisory capacity, and develop gender-transformative and inclusive policies and budgeting

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Education - Improving Education for Children - CARE

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Our programs provide tailored solutions to students facing multiple barriers to education to acquire relevant skills, creating opportunities for positive transitions to secondary school and dignified livelihoods. Our integrated approach is based on extensive research on what works to increase marginalized girls' learning outcomes, retention, and wellbeing.

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This is the speech that Emma Watson made about gender equality.

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Date: Saturday, September 20, 2014
Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a special event for the HeForShe campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 20 September 2014 [Check against delivery.]
Today we are launching a campaign called " HeForShe."

I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality-and to do that we need everyone to be involved.

This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don't just want to talk about it, but make sure it is tangible.

I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

For the record, feminism by definition is: "The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes."

I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called "bossy," because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents-but the boys were not.

When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press.

When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn't want to appear "muscly."

When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.

Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?

I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.

No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality.

These rights I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn't love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn't assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influencers were the gender equality ambassadors that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today. And we need more of those.

And if you still hate the word-it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it. Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.

In 1995, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women's rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today.

But what stood out for me the most was that only 30 per cent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?

Men-I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.

Because to date, I've seen my father's role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother's.

I've seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less "macho"-in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I've seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don't have the benefits of equality either.

We don't often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.

If men don't have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won't feel compelled to be submissive. If men don't have to control, women won't have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong... It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.

If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are-we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It's about freedom.

I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too-reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.

You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It's a good question and trust me, I have been asking myself the same thing. I don't know if I am qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.

And having seen what I've seen-and given the chance-I feel it is my duty to say something. English Statesman Edmund Burke said: "All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing."

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I've told myself firmly-if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful.

Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won't be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier.

And for this I applaud you.

We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the "he" for "she". And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?

Thank you.
To see a video of Emma delivering her speech, visit HeForShe.org

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emma watson gender equality is your issue too

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Emma Watson Gender equality is your issue too

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Date: Saturday, September 20, 2014 Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a special event for the HeForShe campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 20 September 2014 [Check against delivery.] Today we are launching a campaign called " HeForShe." I am reaching out to you because I need your help.

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The belief that females should be equal to men.