Photo credit.

Fred Mednick

Case Study in Curriculum Development & Design

FOCUS OVERVIEW: Girls Education

2nd Semester, 2017

Girls Education Case Study
Girls education is front-page news. Malala Yousafzai,
the sixteen-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for
her efforts both to attend school and advocate for girls
education, recently addressed the United Nations General
Assembly and was nominated for a 2013 Nobel Peace
Prize (Yousafzai, July 12, 2013).

Global agencies, advocacy groups, and feature films such

as Girl Rising and Half the Sky, have popularized a
correlation between the advancement of girls education
and overall global development (Lomoy, J. 2010; Bhatt,
E. 2011).

Adopted formally by 189 member states and 23

international organizations in September 2000, the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) enlist
governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
and global agencies to accomplish targets established in 8
broad categories: (1) eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger (2) achieve universal primary education (3)
promote gender equality and empower women (4) reduce
child mortality (5) improve maternal health (6) combat
HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases (7) ensure
environmental sustainability, and (8) build global
Photo Credit: Fred Mednick partnerships for development (UN-MDG Report, 2013).

The United Nations claims that the MDGs catalyzed unprecedented progress and dramatic
results (Ibid, pgs. 4-16; Heyzer, 2005). Secretary General Ban Ki Moons 2013 report asserts
substantial gains across all eight goals. The goals to halve the number of those living in
extreme poverty as well as those without reliable access to clean drinking water have been met
(Ban, K, 2012). In addition, the aggregate figure for gender equality in primary schools is on
par with those of boys (Ibid, pg. 5).

Efforts to stem malnutrition, remove barriers to school enrollment, curtail unsanitary

conditions leading to child mortality, and combat malaria and tuberculosis have been equally
impressive (Lewis, M. & Lockheed, M. 2007). Rapid advances in technology, particularly in
telephony, networks, and Internet access, have resulted in dramatic changes in e-government,

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education, and entrepreneurial activity (Cisco, 2008). Today, from all corners of the globe,
communities expect information to be accessible, available, and affordable so that they may
participate in a globally interconnected economy (World Bank, 2008)

The United Nations recognizes the correlation between girls education and overall social and
economic development (Hannum, E., Buchmann, C. 2005), particularly MDG 3 to promote
gender equality and empower women; An educated mother is 50% more likely to immunize
her child than a mother without an education (UNESCO, 2012). With an extra year of
education, a girl can earn up to 20% more as an adult and often reinvest 90% of her income
into her family. (Save the Children, 2005). Children born to literate mothers are far more
likely to survive past the age of 5 (Hogan, 2010). Over the past 40 years, womens education
has prevented more than 4 million child deaths (Veneman, 2007).

As the 2015 MDG expiration date approaches, a vigorous and contentious post-2015 debate is
well underway, particularly in regard to the education of girls.

Millennium Development Goal Challenges

Despite claims of having inspired dramatic advances in human welfare, the MDGs have faced
substantial criticism as an aspirational, unenforceable, one-size-fits-all approach to major
global issues, designed by rich countries as a marketing ploy (Pogge, 2012) to expand markets
or exert political influence (Easterly, 2006). Significant concern has been raised about faulty
evaluation design; data collection, validity, and reliability; and monitoring capacity (Maren,
2002). Womens organizations and marginalized communities claim that the MDGs have not
included them at the negotiation table (Maren, pgs 47-56).

Critics argue that the MDGs have committed egregious sins of omission that cut across a wide
range of international development and policy issues, by failing to include declarations and
conventions introduced since the MDGs began. (USAID, 2012). Others decry a lack of usable
and enforceable frameworks for the protection of human rights, particularly those of women,
beyond a fleeting, tokenistic, or rhetorical embrace (UNGEI, 2012). Without the inclusion of
such issues (most notably targets for food security, internet access, peace, and justice), the
MDGs are dismissed as hollow and ephemeral (Eastery, pgs. 35-47).

The criticism is not limited to structural or political issues. The MDGs themselves have come
under intense scrutiny. Halving poverty has been viewed as woefully under ambitious
(Barton, 2005). Most poor countries will not meet MDG targets (Annan, 2010). The Global
Campaign for Education (GCE) reports that (1) in 47 out of 54 African countries, girls have
less than a 50% chance of completing primary school, and (2) in the least developed countries
overall, more than a third of young women, 15-24 years old, cannot read (GCE, 2013; OECD,
2010). In several regions of sub-Saharan Africa, the number of mobile phones outstrips the

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number of latrines or flush toilets (Cohen, 2010).

As the MDG debate continues, proponents and critics agree that the education of girls is of
paramount importance in global efforts to address global problems, particularly in the area of
education access and equity, public health, and education in emergencies (Turquet, Watt, &
Sharman, 2007).

Education Access and Equity

Issues of gender equity have been central to the development of a gender sensitive lens designed
to link social justice and gender equality with education for sustainable development (De
Schutter, 2010). Researchers and NGO leaders have demanded publicly viewable data and
accountability measures ensuring that policies governing gender equity and protecting girls are
enforced (UNESCO Atlas, 2012)

The United Nations latest Millennium Development Report (2013) Report acknowledges this
issue, claiming that persisting gender-based inequalities in decision-making continue to deny
women a say in the decisions that affect their lives (UNDP 2013, p.5). For several countries
rated at the bottom of the United Nations Development Index, the pace of progress toward equity
and human rights has not only slowed, but also gone backward (UNDP Index, 2013).

Photo Credit: Human Rights Watch

The issues surrounding girls education are rarely understood from a single theoretical or
empirical perspective, and must consider a range of socio-economic, historical, and cultural

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variables. (Kabeer, 2005). Girls may not attend school in a region of Pakistan because their
families may fear retribution by authorities, human trafficking networks, or school sexual
violence. Families may have been told that religious doctrine forbids the education of girls.
(Milanovic, 2012). From an economic perspective, those same families may not comprehend the
longer-term financial benefits of removing girls from the task of carrying water, rather than
attending school, especially when families are required to pay school fees for uniforms or
supplies (Turquet, et al, pgs. 15-18; Polman 2010).

As the world becomes increasingly aware of educational and equity disparities, the momentum to
build more schools has met with resistance from those who seek assurances that those schools are
staffed with qualified teachers capable of promoting inclusion and fairness (deMayo 2009). In
short, Malala has a right to attend a good school and learn from well-trained educators.

Education and Public Health

Public health cuts across all areas of development and educated girls benefit the most (Temin,
M & Levine, R (2009). Public health professionals must confront female genital cutting, child
marriage, poor maternal care, HIV-AIDS transmission, human trafficking, gender-based
attacks, limited access to health services, protection, or mechanisms to make their voices
heard (Alston, 2004).

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 Photo Credit: Global Campaign for Education

Public Health initiatives have made remarkable success (Chen, 2005). In Malawi, voucher
programmes for fertilizers and seeds have addressed decades-old famine and have transformed
the country into a net food importer. Immunization programs, particularly measles campaigns,
have surpassed expectations. Distributions of mosquito nets (supported by education about
proper use) have drastically reduced the number of malaria-related deaths than among children
not protected from them (Yehualashet, 2011).

Public and private partnerships have made substantial inroads to provide mobile maternal health
units, initiate campaigns to end Fistula, provide free access to antiretroviral treatments, slow HIV
infections among youth, control and treat tuberculosis, distribute vitamin A supplements and
parasite medication, and install water purification systems (De Waal, 1999).

The remarkable success of these health initiatives, however, has evaporated in those regions
where public health education campaigns are insufficient and where women are not empowered
(EFA, 2010).

Here, too, research on gender issues depends upon region, resources, and attention. In sub-
Saharan Africa, women continue to be more likely than men to live in poverty (World Bank
2013). MDGs associated with promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing
child mortality, and improving maternal health are the furthest MDGs from their targets. In sub-
Saharan Africa, where women, especially those between the ages of 15 and 24, are at higher risk
of living with HIV and 30 per cent more likely to be infected with HIV than men (Williams,
2013).

Education in Emergencies
In 2000, as the MDGs were being formalized, the InterAgency Network for Education in
Emergencies (INEE) was founded in order to create education clusters of NGOs and global
agencies in order to coordinate interventions and establish standards.

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 This unprecedented global
collaboration has also enlisted
public support in exposing cases of
education under attack and the use
of schools as battlegrounds.
Photo Credit: Zachary Adam

Today, when disaster strikes,

coordinating NGOs require that
educators be included in first-
responder teams (Save the Children,
2009).

The new millennium also brought to global attention the experience of women in natural and
national disasters (Enarson, 2000). INEE focuses a considerable amount of attention on the
education of girls. Natural and national emergencies have magnified existing social, political,
and economic disparities. Acute crises expected to last months stretch into years,
compounded by the issues that emerge in overcrowded, unsanitary, refugee communities (INEE
Gender Toolkit, 2013). Large-scale natural and national disasters have disenfranchised and
displaced millions, resulting in the largest number of refugees in history.
During the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami, two-thirds of the casualties were women
(UNISDR, 2005). In 2013, states bordering Syria faced the daunting humanitarian task of
absorbing 2.5 million displaced people into makeshift camps (UNHCR, 2014; Human Rights
Watch 2013) in which polio once eradicated has returned and incidents of gender violence
have soared.
Often responsible for basic livelihoods and care for children in refugee communities, girls and
women have suffered the most. Relegated to a lower rung on food, power, and housing
hierarchies, girls and women are subject to higher rates of infectious and water-borne diseases,
and sexual and domestic abuse.

INEE has led the effort to promote the instrumental role women have played in mitigating the
effects of hazards through prevention and rescue and recovery, relief, and reconstruction. The
International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction and the United Nations Development
Programme now campaign for gender mainstreaming to be incorporated into disaster management
initiatives, including education in the science and technology of safety, educational leadership,
disaster preparedness and planning, child-friendly spaces in emergencies, post-disaster relief, and
reconstruction efforts following natural or national disasters.

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Girls Education: Research Questions and Challenges for
NGOs
The United Nations and NGOs worldwide are asking critical questions as they seek to inform or
influence the post-2015 MDG agenda. Those questions require empirical, theoretical, and
contextual research that considers the complex, interdisciplinary nature of the development field
itself. Such questions often include, but are certainly not limited to, the following: n

How do we build the capacity necessary to evaluate our work and demonstrate impacts?
What successful methodologies and best practices should we use to negotiate power
relationships and stakeholder pressures?
What are the processes by which successful gender mainstreaming practices in one
region might be of valuable to, and take root in, in our region?
Considering our environmental, political-economic, social, and cultural context, how do
we address threats to our work?
What tools and resources have been successful in measuring the effects of girls
education in a given community?
How can our girls education efforts be sustained, replicated, communicated, and
measured?
How might we address the opportunities and challenges of communicating these impacts
to policy makers, planners, field workers, and community organizations?
How do we manage change?
How do we cultivate leadership?
How do we ensure community support?

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