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.