Education the key to development

When a girl is educated, she is literate and she can communicate with other members of society and create additional opportunities for herself. Health education is particularly important for all women.
Girls and women all over the world remain deprived of full and equal opportunities for education. The UNESCO World Atlas argues that there has been progress towards parity in primary education; however, after secondary level education, this tapers off significantly in the developing regions. In Nicaragua, 45 percent of girls with no schooling are married before age 18 versus only 16 percent of their educated counterparts. In Mozambique, the figures are 60 percent versus 10 percent and in Senegal, 41 percent versus 6 percent. See what a little education can do? Education is a key to preventing immature childbirth and early childhood marriage ( Girl Effect ).
From research, we know that when a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, on average, she will marry four years later and have 2.2 fewer children (Girl Effect ). An extra year of primary school has proven to boost a girls’ wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school boosts their wage about 15 to 25 percent – one extra year of school! Think of how that one additional year could improve and change the course of their life. In Half the Sky, Kristof and WuDunn argue:
“The single most important way to encourage women and girls to stand up for their rights is education, and we can do far more to promote universal education in poor countries.”
Emmanuel Jal, a child soldier-turned-rapper, shares his thoughts on the power of educating women. He says:
“The best way to help Sudan, is to educate its women.”
He speaks of his sister who was raped during the civil war. Rather than sit and complain about it, she has turned her pain into positive actions, because “she understands the power of education.” He goes on to say that women are much more clever than men but never have the chance to fully demonstrate their strength. Women are the ones who educate the kids and teach them how to behave; they take care of the household and make sure everyone gets fed. “Men are too busy talking politics and killing each other” ( World Bank ).
In Kenya, if every girl completed secondary school, this would add about $27 billion to the economy over the course of their lifetimes (Girl Effect ). In Ethiopia, if girls completed secondary education, nearly $6.8 billion would be contributed. These are astronomical figures.
In October 2010, The World Bank started an initiative called “Educate a Woman, Build a Nation…” They created an Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) to help young women get jobs after high school.  This program also encourages the girls to finish high school. Since its inception, almost 20,000 adolescent girls from Afghanistan to Rwanda have been impact (Girl Effect ). In their occupational training programs, they have a nearly 95 percent completion rate. BRAC reaches nearly 800,000 girls globally by providing girl spaces, life skills, and access to microfinance (Girl Effect ). Movements like the AGI, and other similar initiatives launched by BRAC, the NoVo Foundation, and the Nike Foundation, have changed the way the world perceives the importance of education for both men, and women.
Education can transform and empower girls and women to create sustainable development for society as a whole.


Resources

Girl Effect: Fact Sheet. http://www.girleffect.org/explore/taking-the-girl-effect-to-scale/deck-assets-the-world-for-girls
UNESCO: World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education . United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 1-94.