Poverty has been a major hindrance to education in this West African nation, where only about 56 percent of girls are enrolled in primary school — compared to 70 percent of boys. Girls are under intense pressure to stay home to help with housework, according to UNICEF. Some are also expected to work as child laborers in the country’s gold mines. Conflict in northern Mali two years ago, however, has only worsened the education gap as hundreds of thousands of children have become refugees with limited access to schooling.

As we stand together on ‘Malala Day’, it is vital to stand up for what Malala believes in, and to put the spotlight on the extreme disadvantage that many poor girls and young women face in getting to school. Our new Education for All Global Monitoring Report and our new interactive website – World Inequality Database in Education, WIDE – provides us with a global scorecard ranking the extent of education poverty in countries around the world. Pakistan is in the bottom ten countries for the proportion of poorest girls who have never even spent time in a classroom. Only six African countries are in a worse situation. It is also in the bottom ten for the amount of time that young women have spent in school in their life-time. Almost two-thirds of poorest girls in Pakistan have never been to school. The long term neglect of education means that the poorest young women in the country have only spent around a year in school on average. Without a real step change by the government to give these children and young people the education and training they need, including a second chance for those who have missed out, they will be denied equal opportunities in work and life forever.