The BBC reported in April that Kofi Annan and the United Nations were urging nations, especially in the developing world, to make more of an effort to educate girls.
In the developed world, rates of schooling at primary and secondary levels are almost identical by sex. But in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only 60 percent of girls attend school and worldwide the Global Campaign for Education claims that 65 million girls never attend school. Moreover, the GCE claims that two-thirds of the worlds almost 900 million illiterate adults are women.
As Annan points out, the cost of not educating girls is an expense that developing nations cannot afford,
If we are to succeed in our efforts to build a more healthy, peaceful and equitable world, the classrooms of the world have to be full of girls as well as boys. Every year of schooling completed by them will be a step towards eradicating poverty and disease.
. . .
Study after study has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
The BBC notes that the World Bank has set a goal to achieve sexual equality in schooling by 2005, which is one of those goals which will not come close to being met.
Source:
Annan plea for girls’ schooling. The BBC, April 8, 2003.