The importance of educating women and girls

The education of women and girls throughout the world is of paramount importance. Educating them will have implications for societies, communities and the world in general. The education of women and girls is a key driver of sustainable development and social progress, and a human rights issue. However, there are still many challenges and obstacles to girls’ education. Inequality and discrimination are still the order of the day. Let’s take a closer look at what this means and what the possible solutions are.


Gender equality and equity


There has been a marked improvement in girls’ education over the last 25 years, and much progress has been made. The latest UNESCO report states that 180 million more girls have enrolled in school. However, when it comes to access to and completion of education in poor countries, there is a gender gap. Girls are less likely to enrol and stay in school, those who do enrol do not complete primary school, and few of those who do complete primary school go on to university.


According to surveys carried out by UNESCO:

  • 2018 (130 million girls in the world are not in school)
  • 2019 (12 million are married at an early age)
  • 2019 (18.5 million girls aged between 15 and 19 become pregnant).


According to article 3 of the preamble to the 1946 constitution: ‘The law guarantees women, in all areas, equal rights with men’ despite this, there is still a long way to go before we can talk about equity and equality between women and men, particularly in education. The GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT (GEM) affirmed this in a report published in 2020 entitled ‘25 years of efforts to achieve gender equality in education’.


Access to education, the main obstacles


Girls and young women are deprived of their right to education. They face various obstacles. These include:


Poverty: Almost everywhere in the world, children living in poverty encounter difficulties in education, but the stakes are much higher for girls. In families with little money, there are not enough resources to send all the children to school, so the choice goes to the boy or boys in the family.


Ethnicity: There are also cultural factors that come into play; in some traditions, unfortunately, girls are still assigned to housework, and the focus is on domestic chores rather than their education, as it should be. This favours the education of boys while neglecting that of girls.


Disability: Disabled girls are doubly victimised because of their status as girls and as disabled children. Education is difficult for them to access, and they are subject to multiple forms of discrimination. Many of them do not go to school, and the quality and treatment received by those who do is questionable.


Child marriage: Child marriage, most of which is forced, has serious consequences on the lives of young girls, which in turn has repercussions for the community. Married children mean responsibility and dropping out of school.


Early and unwanted pregnancy: When girls become pregnant, they automatically stop attending school, either because they are stigmatised, marginalised or simply because their institution considers pregnancy to be grounds for dismissal.


Gender-based violence: So many young girls have had to drop out of school because of gender-based violence. The violence is physical, sexual and moral. It usually happens at school, on the way to school, or on the way to get supplies for the home (fetching water, wood for cooking, etc.).


Educating girls, opportunities and consequences


While there are obstacles to girls’ education, there are also opportunities that could alleviate the problems. If we want a strong society with fulfilled women, we need to educate them, starting in early childhood. Educating girls from early childhood will give them a solid foundation for their learning and their future. They become well-rounded, aware adults. They avoid early marriages and pregnancies that would limit their future prospects.


However, if we are talking about schooling for girls, we need to talk about education that is adapted to the needs of each individual. Many children have access to education on the cheap. Teachers are not sufficiently trained, the environment is inadequate and there is a lack of school infrastructure. Talking about getting girls into school should really mean guaranteeing quality and appropriate education.


Gender stereotypes need to be deconstructed


Girls and boys must enjoy their right to education equally and equitably. (Including pregnant girls and young mothers). Governments must establish an inclusive education system at all levels. Disabled people must fully enjoy their right to education in accordance with Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The same opportunities must be offered to all on an equal basis.


If we want girls to go to school, it must be of good quality and there must be a good infrastructure. Much better hygiene care is needed in schools. The issue of menstrual hygiene should no longer be an obstacle to education, and there must be access to intimate hygiene for girls in schools.


There is no more effective tool for sustainable development than girls’ education


Girls’ schooling is a tool for reducing poverty in their communities, and has economic benefits. According to the World Bank, each year of secondary education enables girls to increase their adult earnings by up to 25%. Education empowers girls and increases their ability to make decisions. An educated woman is much more likely to engage in civic and community activities, and to know and defend her rights.


Getting girls into school will have social, demographic and intergenerational consequences. Educated girls become adult women with better family planning results. Educated women help to improve maternal and child health. Prenatal care increases with the level of education.


An educated woman will pass on her knowledge to her children, who in turn will do the same and perpetuate the cycle. One educated woman can produce a generation of educated men and women. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), education reduced the rate of malnutrition in the world by 40% at the end of the twentieth century. Girls’ education is important in all areas and at all levels. Getting girls into school is, and will remain a sure route to sustainable development, with a new generation of men and women prepared to face the future with hope.


Children’s education and quality of life are influenced by that of their mothers and fathers, but particularly that of their mothers. If we want to break this cycle of inequality, which is so persistent, we need to change the norms now. If the parents’ level of education determines that of their children, then it is in education that we need to invest if we aspire to a new generation of men and women. Educating girls means betting on the future.




Biography


Rose-Tamara Jeanty was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in Carrefour, where she studied diplomacy/international relations and human resources. She is an intelligent, dynamic and open-minded person; someone who believes that with the right methods and strategies, things can change.


This article first appeared in Engage 27.

BY ROSE-TAMARA JEANTY • May 13, 2024

The Importance of Holocaust Education in Schools

By Hedi Argent • April 29, 2026
The aim of Holocaust education should never be to introduce young people to the details of the horrors of the Holocaust, but to help them to understand how it could happen: what led up to it, and to recognise how conspiracy theories, fake news and disinformation lead to prejudice. And how prejudice leads to racism – and when racism is allowed to flourish, then there is no limit to what can happen. I give talks mainly to students in Year 6 who are in the last class of primary school. They are good listeners and generally uninhibited about interacting and asking searching questions. Some talks inevitably have to be on Zoom because of unmanageable distances, but there is an advantage because several schools can participate and I have spoken to as many as 500 children in one session. With a bit of technical luck, I can see them and they can see me as well as PowerPoint illustrations. I talk about my own experiences as a child and how my cousin and I became the targets of racism and learned how antisemitism, surely the oldest form of racism, felt as well as what it meant. Our stories had very different outcomes: I was lucky and survived. I came to England with my parents. We discuss what refugees may bring with them and what and who they must leave behind and how that may feel. I encourage them to listen to others’ stories and to tell their own – we all have stories to tell and they help us to welcome strangers, not to fear them. My cousin was not lucky. He was one of six million who were not lucky. The children and I explore together what 6,000,000 means. We stand and I tell them that the late Chief Rabbi of the UK, Lord Jonathan Sachs, once worked out that if we stood for just one minute to commemorate each of the 6,000,000 we would be standing in this place for 11 years and 4 months. We talk about who can do such things? and I stress that there are no bad people but only people who do bad things. I give examples of kindness: a child who played with me when the other children and teachers in my school shunned me and called me names, a man in the Nazi party, who knew and saved my father when he was arrested, and a doctor who took me to hospital, where Jews were not allowed, when I nearly lost a finger. Eli Wiesel, an author, who witnessed the worst terrors of the Holocaust as a child in the camps, once said that when we tell our stories, we share the responsibility of being a witness and when enough of us become witnesses we may never let it happen again. BY HEDI ARGENT Hedi and her parents came to England as refugees from Austria in 1939. Hedi spent most of her working life in Social Work specialising in the adoption of older children and children with disabilities. She has written and edited more than twenty books on the subject and is still working and speaking in schools about the Holocaust and what it means to be a refugee. Hedi has recently written her own story and has donated the royalties from her book sales to the Foundation. She is also an ambassador for the Foundation.

NAPTOSA DIGNITY DEFENDERS PROJECT - What Does It Mean to Be a Boy in Today’s World?

By Joenty Ngoma • April 27, 2026
What does it mean to be a boy in today’s world? Is it to be watched, managed, expected to fail before you even begin, or is it to be shaped, trusted, and taught how to carry dignity without dropping it? That question followed me off the bus at the Dignity Defenders camp. The air was thick with uncertainty. Boys from different schools stood in long, uneven lines, gripping oversized bags under a sun that felt far too awake for how unsure we all were. One by one, police officers searched through our belongings at the gate. No introductions. No explanations. Just hands in bags, eyes scanning for what might go wrong. The message landed quietly but firmly: we were not trusted. At first, it stung. I looked around at the boys beside me, some nervous, some joking too loudly, some silent, and none of them looked like criminals or threats. They looked like boys carrying more than just clothes: expectations, pressure, unfinished childhoods. And yet, here we were, treated as potential problems before we were given the chance to be people. Still, honesty matters. An all-boys camp does sound like something that could collapse into chaos if left unchecked. In a world already strained by conflict and unrest, caution becomes a reflex. That gate, uncomfortable as it was, became the first lesson: when society loses trust, control rushes in to fill the gap. What followed, however, was not control, it was education in its most human form. We were separated from friends, gently but deliberately, nudged into unfamiliar conversations. We slept in shared dormitories; bunk beds stacked like unspoken agreements to coexist. Slowly, the tension softened. The space began to feel less like a holding area and more like a classroom without walls. One speaker, calm and sharply articulate, spoke about substance abuse. When he revealed that he was a former drug addict, the room shifted; not because of shock, but because of contrast. He did not look broken. He looked rebuilt. His story dismantled the idea that one mistake writes an entire future. It reminded us that education is not about erasing the past but understanding it well enough to move forward. Later, a boy raised his hand and admitted he used substances to cope with stress at home. There was a brief, fragile silence. Then someone asked, "Why?". That single question cracked something open. Suddenly, drugs were no longer the headline; pressure, pain, and survival were. Education, in that moment, did not judge. It listened. We learned how to defend dignity, physically, legally, and emotionally. We learned what to do when it is threatened, how to protect ourselves and others, and how to act instead of freeze. These were not academic lessons. They were tools for a world that does not always play fair. Near the end of the camp, chess appeared, almost casually, disguised as a fun competition. What began as a game slowly unfolded into a lesson. We were encouraged to play, to compete, to enjoy it, but also to think. Each move demanded patience. Every decision carried a consequence that could not be taken back. It was no longer just about winning, but about understanding that rushing the present often sabotages the future. When the competition ended, the strongest players were rewarded with mini chessboards. Receiving my first chessboard felt symbolic, a small object carrying a quiet reminder that life, like chess, rewards those who think beyond their next move. By the end of the camp, something had shifted. My idea of masculinity no longer revolved around strength or silence, but awareness. Education, I realised, is what teaches us how not to become what the world fears we already are. In times of unrest, education is not a luxury; it is a stabiliser; a compass. As Steve Sinnott called it, ‘the great liberator.’ And for a group of boys who were once searched at a gate, it became the reason we walked out trusted, not by authority, but by ourselves. BY JOENTY NGOMA CULTURAL HIGH SCHOOL SOUTH AFRICA (GRADE 11) 

Shaping Education Through the Lens of Identity

By Shahnaz Akhter • April 22, 2026
On a recent trip to Pakistan, I was struck by two contrasting images. In one, school children moved through the chaos of Rawalpindi’s streets, their journey interrupted by traffic, by cows being walked through the road, by the everyday disorder of the city. In another, young children carried heavy bags for street vendors who give them employment; their labour, part of the same urban rhythm but pointing to very different futures. Access to education, as is often referenced in this magazine, is not universal. I reference Pakistan not only because of these scenes, but because it is closely linked to my heritage and identity. Reflecting on what education means, and how I interact with it, has been central to my academic journey. Coming from a family where my parents were not formally educated, education has provided me with opportunities that were not previously available to them. This experience shaped my decision to work in widening participation in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. One of the projects we developed was the Colonial Hangover Project, designed to explore the everyday legacies of colonialism. The project aimed not only to give school-aged students the confidence to speak back to a curriculum that often remains silent on their histories, but also to create opportunities for experiences they might otherwise not have access to because of their backgrounds. It was through the Colonial Hangover Project that we enabled students to speak at the Colonial Legacies conference held at Coventry Cathedral. Students from across Coventry spoke about their heritage, produced art, and sang gospel songs reflecting their experiences as young people whose families are linked to British history through empire. They spoke about local histories, including the grave of enslaved child Myrtilla, about South Asian heritage, and about the ways colonial hierarchies have shaped relationships between communities, including the persistence of anti-Blackness within some South Asian communities. Over 400 students came together during the day to celebrate their heritage and to speak within the cathedral. Building on this momentum, the work sparked a wider ambition: to ensure that all schools, particularly those in areas of high deprivation such as Coventry, could access sustained opportunities rather than one-off interventions. This led to a drive to connect schools to the UNESCO ASPnet Schools Network, widening access to global learning while embedding students within an international community committed to peace, cultural understanding, and social justice. For a city shaped by postindustrial decline and uneven educational outcomes, this connection mattered. It enabled students to see their local experiences as part of a wider global story. Alongside this, we drew on the Hidden Heroes campaign led by Preet Gill and Tom Tugendhat, encouraging students to identify and celebrate their own heroes within their families and communities. This created pathways for young people to speak in the UK Parliament, bringing together local heritage, global networks, and civic voice. Together, these strands reflected a shared commitment: widening participation not only in education, but in belonging and representation. BY SHAHNAZ AKHTER Associate Director is based in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, where she works in widening participation and outreach. Her work focuses on creating meaningful pathways for school-aged students from underrepresented backgrounds to engage with higher education, civic life, and global learning.