Girls' Education Is Necessary For Development

When you educate a man, you educate an individual and when you educate a woman, you educate an entire family." This declaration is multi faceted-an educated woman has the self confidence, skills as well as intelligence to understand the need to be a better daughter, sister, wife and mother and make a progressive family. Education is the only tool with which a girl or a woman can empower herself and eventually her family.

Girls' education is both an intrinsic right and a critical lever to reaching other development objectives. Providing girls with an education helps break the cycle of poverty: educated women are less likely to marry early and against their will; less likely to die in childbirth; more likely to have healthy babies; and are more likely to send their children to school. When all children have access to a quality education rooted in human rights and gender equality, it creates a ripple effect of opportunity that influences generations to come

Education is one of the most critical areas of empowerment for women. It is also an area that offers some of the clearest examples of discrimination women suffer. Among children not attending school there are twice as many girls as boys, and among illiterate adults there are twice as many women as men. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education, and its connection to the alleviation of poverty.

An educated woman is, for example, likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. Studies show that an extra year of schooling for girls reduces fertility rates by 5 to 10 per cent. In India, for example, the infant mortality rate of babies whose mothers have received the primary education is half that of children whose mothers are illiterate.

In total, more than 130 million girls are out of school today. Too many girls are still shut out of school because they have to work, are married early, or have to care for younger siblings, denying them their fundamental right to education. Girls face violence preventing them from going to school in over 70 countries.

Increasingly, adolescent girls also face economic and social demands that further disrupt their education, spanning from household obligations and child labour to child marriage, gender-based violence and female genital mutilation. Recent estimates show that one-third of girls in the developing world are married before age 18, and one-third of women in the developing world give birth before age 20. If all girls had secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, child marriage would fall by 64 per cent, from almost 2.9 million to just over 1 million. Inadequate or discriminatory legislation and policies often inhibit girls' equal access to quality education. In countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, formal or written threats to end classes for girls have fueled gender-motivated attacks on schools.

India holds a strong determination in educating all children, especially the girl-child. By declaring education as a fundamental right, India ensures constitutional provisions for providing free and compulsory education to all the children between 6 to 14 years of age. This provision is widely known as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan."

Indeed, even in the wake of proclaiming education as a fundamental right, there are various obstacles that forbid a girl child from getting an education. The greatest obstacle is the partialities that families have are-like girls are slow learners, they are not levelheaded; they are to be restricted inside the domestic household, and why make a fuss over instructing them.

Just a modest bunch of individuals have really understood the significance of educating girls. Despite the fact that not an immediate cause, the scandalous dowry system is additionally another hindrance in girl child education. Families frequently think about a girl child as a burden and regularly need to spare the cash for their dowry instead of spending it on her education.