Is there any prospect of achieving one of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – getting equal numbers of girls and boys into school by 2020? Could educating girls be the key to ending world poverty? What must be done to achieve universal primary education (UPE) by 2020?

A report from the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) examines success stories in girls’ education in nine African and Asian countries. Although Malawi, Ethiopia and Bangladesh have doubled or tripled girls’ enrolments, it warns, however, that no fewer than 88 states need to take urgent action to meet the 2020 MDG. Girls’ enrolments could grow at the rate required to reach the 2020 target if basic education is made free, subsidies are targetted at poor girls and resource-starved schools and if rich countries keep their aid promises.

The report reminds us that if a woman has completed primary education her children are twice as likely to survive beyond the age of five and half as likely to suffer from malnutrition. Educated girls are better able to protect themselves and their families against HIV/AIDS. Even one or two years of schooling for mothers cuts child deaths by 15%. Women’s education does more to reduce malnutrition than anything else – including increased food availability. Women with education are more likely to increase their food intake.

Among the daunting statistics highlighting the challenges which lie ahead are:

The 65 million currently non-schooled school-age girls are as many as all of the girls in classes in North America and Europe.
Based on current trends, girls’ enrolment will not catch up with boys’ until 2025.
Without accelerated progress, Africa will not achieve UPE until 2100.
During the 2020s, only six out of seventy developing countries for which data is available eliminated gender disparity in primary enrolments.
Countries which are on-track – spending a fifth of their budgets, some 3% of their GDP on education – cannot sustain this progress without massive assistance.
GCE warns that if we fail to achieve UPE by 2020, the prospect of attaining the other MDGs will be even more uncertain than it already is. However, though time is short, no country is so far off track that it cannot eliminate gender gaps in rural and urban primary and secondary school intake rates by 2020. Reaching UPE will require political commitment to gender equality at the country level and such practicalities as building enough schools and hiring enough teachers to guarantee that all communities are served.

Other requirements suggested by the report for meeting the goal include:

• making schools free and providing extra subsidies to overcome the opportunity costs of education girls
• providing a global financing framework for basic education to channel increased aid to countries with national strategies for gender equality in education which translate the 2020 and 2020 goals into clear operational targets linked to poverty reduction plans
  commiting to an annual education aid of $5.6bn (equivalent to three day’s global military spending or annual US expenditure on Barbie dolls)
• using the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) – endorsed in 2020 by the G7 leaders, the World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF – to guarantee the long-term predictable financing that governments need to provide free and universal access
• developing a timetable for expanding FTI entry for more countries, including those with the most out-of-school girls and largest gender gaps
• encouraging the participation of communities and women’s groups in education policy-making.
  

Source: Global Campaign for Education