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| Tuesday, 6 January 2004 |
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Investing in girls' education - a tool for development by Chandani Jayatilleke "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected." This is the commitment made by the Member States of the United Nations in the Millennium Declaration in September 2000 to address the issues - crippling poverty and multiplying misery that grip many areas of the globe.
Governments have set a date of 2015 by which to meet the Millennium Development Goals: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustain ability and develop a global partnership for development. While achieving each goal is critical to development, two are considered to be central to all others - universal education, and gender equality and empowering women. Universal education might seem a relatively straightforward goal but it has proved as difficult as any to achieve. Though there have been efforts and commitments over the decades, some 121, million children around the world are still denied this right. Despite 1,000s of successful projects in countries around the globe, gender parity in education - in access to school, successful achievement and completion is as elusive as ever and girls continue to systematically lose out on the benefits that an education affords. There is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls, Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations stated. As reported by the State of the World Children Report 2004 published by the UNICEF, millions of young girls never attend schools at all, millions more never complete their education and countless numbers never receive the quality education that is their right. These millions of girls slip easily to the margins of the societies - less healthy than they could be, less skilled with fewer choices in their lives and less hope for the future. As they grow into women, they are ill-prepared to participate fully in the political, social and economic development of their communities. They and their children in turn are at higher risk of poverty, HIV/AIDS, sexual exploitation, violence and abuse. To educate a girl is to educate a whole family. What is true of families is also true of communities and ultimately whole countries. Study after study has revealed that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health - including helping to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is powerful in increasing the chances of education for the next generation, stated Annan in the report. Investing in girls' education today, not just with money but with energy and enthusiasm, commitment and concern, focus and intensity is a strategy that will protect the rights of all children to a quality education and a strategy that will jump-start all other development goals, the report stressed. But the signs in the first three years since the Millennium Declaration are not encouraging for universal education, gender parity or for any of the other Millennium Development Goals. If progress is not accelerated, the levels of hunger that threaten survival will persist in some regions of the world for an inconceivable 100 years. Millions of children under five continue to die needlessly over the same time. More immediately than the 2015 date, the Millennium Development Goal of gender parity in primary and secondary education is set to be achieved by 2005, 10 years before the others. The 2005 goal is the first test of the world's commitment to break poverty's stranglehold. Many countries however will fall short of the 2005 target for gender parity in education if nothing is done now to accelerate change. Without the foundation of gender parity in education as the necessary step towards the equality of women, any achievements towards these goals will not be sustainable. Thus the 2005 goal of eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education becomes the first step toward meeting the 2015 goals - and the most urgent one of all. Backdrop: A recent survey has revealed that more than 57,000 children aged 5 to 14 in Sri Lanka have not enrolled in school at all. The survey conducted last year by the Non-Formal Unit of the Education Ministry, also found that nearly 19,000 children of this age group have dropped out from school. The majority of these children are from the North and East provinces- nearly 35,000 non-school-going children and 12,500 dropouts. However, according to some estimates, as many as 94,000 children in the North-East are out of school. Ninety-seven percent of those reaching the age of five are enrolled in schools. Of the children enrolled in grade one 98.2 per cent complete primary education and 82.6 percent complete the terminal grade of the compulsory education grade span. |
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