More on International Literacy Day from UNESCO
Learn why girls education in particular helps the world to blossom.
* Want to save a child's life, teach a girl to read. If mothers have a primary school education, the mortality rate for their children under 5 is halved: Each additional year of schooling for girls reduces infant mortality for their offspring by up to 10%. Also, mothers provide better nutrition and health care and spend more on their children: girls and women spend 90% of their earned income on their families, while men only spend 30-40% 6
* Want to reduce population strain, teach a girl to read. Girls who receive secondary and higher education beyond grade 7 have, on average, 2.2 fewer children than girls with less or no education. Every year of education delays a girl's marriage and reduces the number of children she has. Girls with secondary schooling are up to six times less likely to be married as children than girls with little or no education.
* Want to reduce violence towards women, teach a girl to read. Educated women are more likely to resist abuses such as domestic violence, traditions like female genital cutting, and discrimination at home, in society or the workplace.
* Want to help an economy, teach a girl to read.Educating girls raises lifetime incomes for them, their families and their countries. The World Bank found in a study of 100 countries that every 1 percent increase in the proportion of women with secondary education boosted a country’s annual per capita income growth rate by about 0.3 percentage points. Girls who have one more year of education than the national average earn 10 to 20 percent more, on average – even more than the increase for boys. In particular, girls with secondary education have an 18% return in future wages, as compared to 14% for boys. 2
New York Times More broadly, girls’ education can, in effect, almost double the formal labor force. It boosts the economy, raising living standards and promoting a virtuous cycle of development. Asia’s economic boom was built by educating girls and moving them from the villages to far more productive work in the cities.
* Want a more peaceful prosperous world, teach a girl to read. One of the factors that correlates most strongly to instability is a youth bulge in a population. The more unemployed young men ages 15 to 24, the more upheaval.One robust Nigeria study managed to tease out correlation from causation and found that for each additional year of primary school, a girl has 0.26 fewer children. So if we want to reduce the youth bulge a decade from now, educate girls today. New York Times.
* Want to reduce spread of disease, teach a girl to read. Studies show that educated women are more likely to know how to prevent HIV infection, to delay sexual activity and to take measures to protect themselves. Education also accelerates behavior change among young men, making them more receptive to prevention messages. Universal primary education is not a substitute for expanded HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, but it is a necessary component that complements these efforts. (Link)
* Want to support a family, teach a girl to read. Girls and women spend 90% of their earned income on their families, while men only spend 30-40%.
* Want to help the environment, teach a girl to read. Woman with a reading education are more able to protect the environment. A reading education improves reproductive health and reduces population. There is a a direct correlation with population, education and environmental degradation. (link)
* Want a more democratic society, teach a girl to read. A Bangladeshi study found educated women three times more likely to take part in political meetings than those without schooling.
* Want to save a woman's life, teach a girl to read. Educated women are less likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth and more likely to send their children to school.
* Want to feed a family, teach a girl to read. Crop yields in Kenya could rise up to 22 percent if women farmers had the same education and inputs (such as fertilizer, credit, investment) as men farmers.3
* Want to educate a child, teach a girl to read. Children of uneducated mothers are half as likely to attend primary school as those whose mothers attended primary school themselves.7
the many petals on the flower of girls education.
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