World Bank Group Education Global Practice  righter Futures Smarter Education Systems for B SNAPSH OT Reaching Girls, Transforming Lives 2016 Overview around the world over the last 15 years in schools. Yemen addressed this demonstrates that financial and other issue by hiring and training over Girls’ education is a strategic incentives can effectively bring girls 1,000 female teachers to work in development priority. Better educated to school and keep them in school. rural areas. These female teachers women tend to be healthier than For instance, Bangladesh pioneered not only help ensure that school uneducated women, participate more CCTs to make schooling affordable for in the formal labor market, earn higher attendance and retention for girls girls and indirectly reduce instances incomes, have fewer children, marry at improve but also serve as positive of child marriage. a later age, and enable better health role models for their students. care and education for their children. All Reducing distance to school. Building safe and inclusive of these factors combined can help lift Location and accessibility of schools can play a significant role in children’s learning environments. households out of poverty. Young girls may forego education ability to go to school. The distance In many countries today, primary and between home and school is a greater because schools are not safe or lack secondary school enrollment rates are problem for girls, especially in rural girl-appropriate facilities such as the same for girls and boys. Two-thirds of areas, where secondary schools are separate latrines. Kano State, Nigeria, all countries have reached gender parity more likely to be distant from small expanded access to girls at the Junior in primary school enrollment. Globally, villages. Safety concerns make parents Secondary School level through however, 62 million girls between the reluctant to let girls walk long distances upgrading of single sex girls’ schools ages of 6 and 15 are not in school, and to school. Building schools closer and providing separate toilet facilities girls continue to lag substantially behind to villages or providing affordable, for girls at co-educational schools. boys in secondary school completion safe public transportation have been rates. Sixteen million girls between the successful interventions to encourage Ending child/early marriage. ages 6 and 11 will never enter school girls’ attendance. In the province of Studies suggest that, in some countries, compared to 8 million boys. Poverty Balochistan in Pakistan, the government child marriage may account for 10-20 remains the most important factor for constructed over 200 community percent of drop-outs among girls at determining whether a girl will go to schools in areas without any girls’ the secondary level. Yet in 60 countries school and research reinforces that schools within a 2 km radius. New over the last 30 years, the share of girls who face multiple sources of school construction, which included girls marrying before the age of 18 disadvantage such as low family income boundary walls, positively impacted only decreased from 51 to 40 percent. level, living in remote or underserved female enrollment, and further Malawi banned child marriage through locations, and/or minority ethno-linguistic improved gender equity in rural areas. legislation that increases the legal age backgrounds remain farthest behind in Ensuring gender-sensitive of marriage from 15 to 18. terms of enrollment and learning. curricula and pedagogies. Addressing violence Research reinforces the importance of Key Interventions against girls and women. gender-sensitive curricula and learning Worldwide, girls have to overcome materials to promote the principles of Experiencing violence in and outside barriers to education caused by gender equality and reduce gender of school can negatively impact poverty, cultural norms and practices, stereotypes. Armenia, following the girls’ enrollment and quality of life. substandard service delivery, 2010 adoption of the Gender Policy In Liberia, which recently emerged poor infrastructure, and fragility. Concept Paper, launched an assessment from a civil war, and where violence Many countries have experimented with of high school textbooks that led to clear against girls and women often multi-sectoral approaches to overcome recommendations for the integration of prevents girls from completing these challenges, including: gender-sensitive perspectives in school school, the government has made Providing scholarships or curricula and textbooks. violence-free school environments conditional cash transfers (CCTs). Hiring qualified female teachers. a priority area for primary and A large body of rigorous evidence Absence of female teachers can be secondary education so that all from CCT programs implemented a deterrent to girls’ participation students, especially girls, feel safe. worldbank.org/education | smartereducation.worldbank.org | @wbg_education Knowledge Project (SEQAEP) aims to improve the (JSS) completion rates successfully rose quality of secondary education and to from 7 percent to 34 percent in Kaduna, The World Bank Group (WBG) is a increase access and equity among poor from 3 percent to 9 percent in Kano, and partner and one of many stakeholders boys and girls, including those living in from 40 percent to 54 percent in Kwara. in the international drive, reinforced remote areas. The project provides proxy In Kwara State, girls’ transition rates by adoption of the Sustainable means-tested stipends and tuition to from primary to JSS increased from 38 Development Goals (SDGs), to improve disadvantaged girls and boys as well as percent in 2007 to 59 percent in 2011. In gender equality and empower girls and incentives to teachers and schools in 125 2010, to further boost girls’ education, women. This commitment to action is upazilas. Students eligible for the stipend a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) pilot captured in the WBG’s Gender Strategy receive between US$15 and US$40 a year program was introduced to improve girls’ 2016 - 2023: Gender Equality, Poverty depending on their grades; benefits are retention rates and promote transition to Reduction and Inclusive Growth, as well conditional on students maintaining at secondary school. as the WBG’s Education Strategy 2020: least 75 percent attendance, achieving a Yemen The Secondary Education Learning for All. The WBG recognizes passing grade in final examinations, and Development and Girls Access Project that a systems-driven, evidence-based remaining unmarried until completion of included IDA lending of US$20 million approach to address the multiple the 10th grade. 1.24 million girls in 6,700 and was implemented in 5 governorates. sources of disadvantage that many secondary schools are benefitting from The project contributed to the Gender girls and women face – whether in the project. Parity Index (GPI) in secondary gross terms of employability, income, health, or the education of their children – is SEQAEP is building on the enrollment increasing from 0.43 to required to fully realize the many transformational Bangladesh Female 0.63 and an increase in the retention benefits of educating girls and women. Secondary School Stipend Projects rate of girls in grades 10-12 from 78 This approach is supported through I and II (1994-2008), also financed by percent to 85 percent. Over 8,000 analytical work to further the global IDA, which helped the country reach students benefited from a transportation evidence base of “what works” to and exceed gender parity in secondary allowance and conditional cash improve gender equality. education. In 1994, at the start of the transfers for school attendance. Over project, the gender parity index was 14,000 teachers were trained in subject Working across the WBG, the Education 0.83 at the secondary level. By 2008, modules, and nearly 100 female teachers Global Practice is leading and when the project’s second phase closed, were trained and hired, encouraging contributing to the global knowledge the gender parity index had risen parents to send daughters to school. base. Across regions, analytical work is dramatically to 1.13. The interventions: In addition, over 40 schools were built, underway and new programs have been providing stipends for girls for secondary and 50 schools were equipped with launched to better understand constraints school enrollment, conditional on school libraries and science/computer labs. to girls’ education, such as the economic attendance and performance; as well as This contributed to creating a safe impacts of child marriage. Reports providing clean drinking water in schools, environment conducive to learning across the WBG are also informing girls’ and separate toilets for boys and girls. for both girls and boys—and concrete education activities and engagement results for girls. including: Voice and Agency: Ghana The Secondary Education Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Improvement Project which includes Partners Prosperity and Women, Business and the IDA lending of US$156 million, aims Law 2016: Getting to Equal. to increase access to senior secondary The WBG works closely with education in underserved districts and governments and other development Lending improve quality in low-performing organizations to identify and advance senior high schools. Scholarships will interventions that improve girls’ The World Bank International be provided to 10,400 students from education outcomes and provide Development Association (IDA) and low income families including a target resources to support countries International Bank for Reconstruction and of 60 percent girls. Approximately 2,000 implementing such initiatives. Development (IBRD) commit significant portions of education lending each year of the targeted 6,000 girls have already The WBG is a member of the United to activities promoting girls’ education received scholarships under the project. Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, through a variety of interventions Nigeria From 2005 to 2015, IDA which is comprised of over 20 partners including stipends to improve primary supported 3 education projects in Nigeria representing multilateral, bilateral, and secondary school completion, skills to promote adolescent girls’ education civil society, and non-governmental development programs, gender-inclusive activities, amounting to nearly US$400 organizations. and -responsive teaching, recruitment million in lending. One of these projects, Since 2002, the WBG has also worked and training of female teachers, and the State Education Sector Project was closely with the Global Partnership for building of safe and inclusive schools. launched to involve 3 targeted states Education (GPE). The WBG supports WBG projects include: and local authorities in developing the the partnership in general, as a Board Bangladesh Implemented since 2008, work force by improving primary and Member, host of the GPE Secretariat, the IDA-financed Secondary Education lower secondary education. Between trustee, and grant agent for the vast Quality and Access Enhancement 2007 and 2011, Junior Secondary School majority of GPE grants. worldbank.org/education | smartereducation.worldbank.org | @wbg_education