In industrialized nations, classrooms with an equal mix of boys and girls are the norm. Not so in the developing world. Of the 113 million children who do not attend school, 65 million – more than half – are girls. This gender gap in education is a major obstacle in poverty alleviation.

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Educating women increases their income in their adult life.

Educating girls has a huge impact on poverty alleviation and can even help kids in future generations. Educated women have been shown to boost per capita income: “An increase of 1 percentage point in the share of women with secondary education is estimated to raise per capita income by 0.3 percentage points,” according to the report ‘Opening Doors: Education and the World Bank.’ Educated women are healthier – for example, they have drastically lower HIV/AIDS infection rates – and their children tend to be healthier as well. Also, educated women are more likely to educate their own children, passing on the gift of education to future generations.

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Achieving gender equality in schools is not easy; many barriers prevent girls from attending school in developing countries. Gender discrimination is a component of many long-held beliefs and often results in girls being married off very young, without a proper education. Also, problems that plague all poor students – girls or boys – such as financial constraints have been shown by the World Bank to have a larger negative effect on girls.

Experts say that gender equality, especially in education, is one of the most effective poverty-alleviation methods.

The last few years, however, have brought improvement. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, as well as many other education goals set by organizations such as the World Bank and UNICEF, are pushing for completely equal education systems around the world by 2015. The United Nations’ organization UNICEF has become the leader of a major campaign for girls education – the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), which boasts 20 partner organizations. UNICEF also promotes the benefits of education on its own and works with local governments to reach out to girls’ families to dispel negative views of equal education. The World Bank also helps, funding programs that assist girls around the world (for example, a $120 million grant to the Female Secondary School Assistance Project, or FSSAP, in Bangladesh has helped one million girls receive small payments in return for attending school).

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Chatterjee, Patralekha. Bangladesh: School Girls' Power (PDF).

Opening Doors: Education and the World Bank.

UNICEF: Girls' Education.

What is UNGEI?. 2005.

World Bank: Girls' Education. 2006.

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