Dare to dream: education for girls, shaped by girls

Education systems in lower income countries are stronger when they engage and inspire girls to believe in a better future. On the 2024 International Day of the Girl, Alicia Mills, education adviser at Cambridge Education, argues that girls need a bigger say in how education is shaped to meet their needs.

Education can be a lifeline for girls and young women in fragile and lower income countries, inspiring them to dream of a better future.
But education systems often fail to provide girls with the support they need to participate in education and achieve their goals.

As a result, high numbers of girls continue to drop out of education and do not realise their potential. There are an estimated 119M girls worldwide who are out of school, according to UNICEF, including 12M in Pakistan, 13M in Ethiopia and 1M in South Sudan, where we are working hard to remove barriers to learning through our girls’ education programmes.

Early marriage, family poverty, gender-based violence and lack of menstrual dignity are some of the interlinked and gendered challenges that contribute to girls’ disengagement from school. Education systems need to reach beyond the school system into communities to connect with out-of-school girls and understand their particular challenges and needs.

At Cambridge Education, we think the way to strengthen girls’ education is to ensure the voices of girls and young women are included at community, local, regional and national level. This includes girls with disabilities, young mothers and those facing conflict and displacement – the experiences of girls are varied and their different perspectives are valuable.

Policymakers need a greater understanding of the cultural, social and financial barriers to girls’ education and how to address them through targeted interventions and system reform. That can only be achieved by asking girls and young women about their aspirations and identifying how education systems can provide choice and agency.

Listening to girls’ experiences

In Ethiopia, our work as the technical lead for the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) programme has allowed us to better understand and address the lived realities of more than 100,000 girls reached through four projects funded by the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office.

Through robust monitoring and evaluation, GEC projects learned how girls required improved financial support, more positive engagement with teachers, a safe school environment and more in-school resources, including support to keep attending school during menstruation.

In response to these concerns, GEC projects trained nearly 15,000 teachers; distributed nearly 100,000 textbooks or learning packs; provided more than 115,000 sanitary kits and covered the school costs of more than 7,000 girls facing extreme poverty or child marriage. Early engagement with girls led to targeted action and higher rates of school attendance, more motivation for learning and greater self-confidence and agency.

Changing behaviour

The Girls’ Education South Sudan (GESS) programme has a strong focus on tackling cultural and systemic barriers. Changing behaviour is challenging, but it can achieve lasting results. For example, the GESS programme developed a series of radio shows, ‘Our School’, which followed the lives of girls and their families as they struggled and resolved the challenges of going to school.

The radio shows improved family and community awareness of, and support for, girls’ education, which helped to empower the girls who took part in GESS’s mentoring programme in secondary schools. Changing community perceptions gave girls an added incentive to gain knowledge and skills to overcome barriers to staying in school and performing well.

The GESS mentoring programme also identified how resource constraints in schools can undermine initiatives aimed at supporting girls’ education. In primary schools, for example, teachers were reluctant to be involved in the mentoring programme without additional incentives due to their heavy workloads. In this case, it was teachers who needed greater support to bring about changes needed by girls.

Influencing policy

Exposing policymakers directly to girls’ own ideas and aspirations can be an effective way of influencing their values and priorities. This worked successfully in Pakistan, where we supported the government to formulate the country’s Special Education Policy in 2020 as part of the Punjab Education Support Programme, (PESP2).

Consulting with young women with disabilities as part of the policy development process, alongside teachers and parents, led to a new disability classification. This recognised the needs of girls, and boys, with a wider range of special educational needs and disabilities.

For example, the policy required that girls and children from rural areas have equal access to education. This led to better budgeting, delivery of services and outreach to rural areas. It resulted in the improvement of school buildings and accessible and safe transport facility for all children with SEND.

System-wide change

New practices to support girls’ education need the buy-in of officials and teachers to be effective. They also need investment in capabilities and resources to sustain them, particularly when there are competing, or conflicting, education priorities.

In Ethiopia, GEC projects have developed close relationships with the middle tier of the education system to support education officers to better understand the challenges faced by girls and how they can respond effectively.

As a result, one of the country’s southern zonal-level education offices committed to scale-up project interventions with their own resources. This allowed nearly half a million more girls to benefit from the gender-responsive training provided to teachers and school leaders.

Once girls’ voices are heard, education systems can better prioritise their needs and channel resources to create lasting change. Let’s take the theme of this year’s International Day of the Girl seriously and support girls to shape better futures for themselves.