WUNRN
http://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/how-get-girls-secondary-school-and-keep-them-there
Girls’ Education – Importance of STAYING IN SCHOOL through SECONDARY EDUCATION
Two new discussion papers by the UN Girls’ Education
Initiative and the Global Partnership for Education
By Koli Banik &
Nora Fyles
April
29, 2014 - Governments all over the world struggle with this question: How can
we keep girls in primary school and help them transition to secondary school?
Many developing countries have identified promising strategies but challenges
remain to ensure girls successfully
complete primary school and transition to secondary in a safe and supportive
learning environment. This is especially important as we shift our focus
from the completion of primary school to continuing on to secondary school and
beyond. Particularly for girls – and especially poor, rural girls -- here is a
significant gender gap in secondary enrollment as confirmed in the 2013/14 GMR Gender Summary
Two
papers on girls’ secondary education
Addressing
this issue, the GPE Secretariat, in partnership with the Secretariat of
the United
Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), produced two short
papers as part of UNGEI’s Working Paper Series: Accelerating Secondary Education for Girls: Focusing on
Access and Retention and Cash Transfer Programs for Gender Equality in Girls’ Secondary
Education.
The
first paper, Accelerating Secondary Education for Girls,
highlights the importance of secondary education as an engine for economic
growth and points out common barriers to girls’ secondary education: school
fees, lack of sanitation facilities, gender based violence, distance, lack of
female teachers, poverty, and cultural issues.
The
paper also introduces the “gender premium” in education explaining how
secondary school completion for girls brings higher lifetime earnings,
decreases in fertility and mortality rates, delays in marriage, and an increase
in decision making, self-confidence, and empowerment.
The paper lays out five important strategies to promote access
to and completion of girls’ secondary education: (1) safe distance to schools,
(2) latrines with menstrual hygiene management, (3) safe and secure school
routes, (4) female teachers, and (5) relevant curriculum which reflect
employment in the labor market.
The
second paper, Cash Transfer Programs for Gender Equality in Girls’ Secondary
Education, examines the
use of conditional cash transfers (CCT) and unconditional cash transfers (UCT)
in successful schemes in Latin America, Sub Saharan Africa and Asia. These
programs have been successful in ensuring girls stay in school, delay the age
of marriage, and successfully complete secondary school.
Cash
transfer programs in many countries, the paper argues, have a positive impact
on girls’ enrollment and continuation in school.
CCTs provide cash assistance to underwrite the cost of schooling
and to compensate parents and caregivers for the opportunity costs so girls
stay in schools. A Mexican program called, PROGRESA, for example,
addresses high dropout rates of girls by providing families with cash if they
send their daughters to school. Unconditional cash transfers increase household
incomes and provide a social safety net for the poorest population. Evidence
from Africa indicates that increased income often translates into more children
going to school, especially girls at the secondary level.