A Push to Broaden Girls' Access to Education

By Sarah Snebold on December 5, 2016

Poverty and a diminished access to education go hand-in-hand. The statistics of this issue state that 50 percent of the 65 million displaced peoples in the world are under 18 years old and one in four of these children don’t have access to primary nor secondary education.

These are considered vulnerable settings, and the women and children here are most commonly and disproportionately denied access to education. In turn, this works to squander their ability to find jobs, engage in civil society and to gain access in other economic opportunities.

A girl in the classroom in Mali raises her hand to answer a question from the teacher. Credit to Global Partnership for Education and Michelle Mesen

The solution to this issue is proposed in the Protecting Girls’ Access to Education in Vulnerable Settings Act (H.S.5735). The bill aims to prioritize the efforts for supporting access to both primary and secondary education for children, with a specific focus on including women and girls in foreign assistance programs. This will be done by:

 

•encouraging the countries where these vulnerable environments are located, to support efforts that would guarantee these displaced youth to have access to quality education,

 

•authorizing the Secretary of State and the Administrator for the USAID to then coordinate with multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and the U.N. to implement programs that would collect data organized by sex and age,

 

•strengthen the training and capacity of governments to host displaced persons and coordinate this with the U.N., the World Bank, local and international NGOs and civil society organizations, in order to design and implement effective programs to address the barriers for equal education,

 

•to focus on the elimination of child marriage, gender based violence, forced labor and trafficking, which would promote girls access to education, and

 

•to ensure women and girls are included and considered in the design, implementation and execution of these programs and all related to the advancement of education.

This bill will work to encourage the inclusion of displaced women and girls in education, thus promoting global gender equity and equality. Additionally, focusing on education for these individuals, can combat the extremism that can grow or escalate in these vulnerable settings.

Photo by Julien Harnies. A teacher who worked with The French National Committee for UNICEF and several reporters regarding the educational situation in Congo

To simplify, this bill will work with the countries of interest directly. It is essential for this to be a multi-faceted approach. The USAID would be most effective when working in unison with other multilateral organizations. This would allow for a greater collection of data, thus broadening the knowledge available. The barriers to overcome range from supply-side constraints to negative social norms, as they include school fees, lacking a sufficient number of female teachers, and negative classroom environments. The latter demonstrates an environment where girls are susceptible to violence, exploitation or corporal punishment. There is also a tendency for cultural norms which favor boys’ education if a family has limited resources. Additionally, there commonly are inadequate sanitation facilities in the schools, to the point that there is scarcity for private and separate latrines.

Further, these girls face an increasing amount of economic and social demands that work to disrupt their educational pursuits. These demands include child labor and marriage, gender-based violence, and female genital cutting and mutilation. The issue lies in the inadequate and discriminatory legislation and policies that work to constrain girls’ equal access to quality education.

For example, in the countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, there have been formal or written threats to close girls’ schools or to end their classes for girls. This then fueled gender motivated attacks on the schools. When these obstacles are compounded with others, such as poverty and disability, the pursuit for education becomes nearly impossible.

Photo of Darfurian refugees in an Eastern Chad school. Credit to European Commission DG ECHO

UNICEF provided the above information. They are a humanitarian and development agency that works to combat the discrimination, violence and exclusion of girls from education. This agency works with the UN and has succeeded in the areas of policy advocacy, programming and monitoring, community engagement, and knowledge management and communication. They advocated policy to encourage girls’ re-entry policy in South Africa and Zambia to allow girls to return to school after childbirth. They programmed and monitor the program, Child Friendly Schools, which works to provide feminine hygiene for adolescent girls in Ethiopia and Uganda. This works to increase their retention rates in school. These are examples of a few accomplishments by UNICEF, out of many. This speaks to why the Protecting Girls’ Access to Education in Vulnerable Settings Act calls for a multilateral approach and programs that would overcome the multitude of obstacles present.

The bill has similar goals to agencies, such as UNICEF, indicating that a multilateral approach is obtainable and could achieve success in the factors pertaining to this issue. The bill is practical and necessary, as education in essential for raising an individual out of the poverty cycle. The legislation is currently in The House of Representatives, and I urge for you to visit The Borgen Project to see how you can motivate your Congress members to pass this bill. Push for these girls to have an equal access to education, and have the opportunity to bring themselves out of the poverty cycle.

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