| Education for girls
The
Global Coalition on Women and AIDS seeks to:
Remove the financial barriers that prevent girls from
going to school. Educated girls have a better chance
of building a future for themselves and their families.
They also have lower rates of HIV infection. Abolishing
school fees, providing cash grants, and introducing
flexible schooling are all ways to help increase girls’
enrolment in schools and give them a better start in
life. |
Girls are less likely than boys to attend school for many
of the following reasons:
• Parents are more likely to spend limited
funds on educating a boy
• Many families do not understand the benefits of educating
girls, whose role is often seen as being prepared for marriage,
family and domestic responsibilities
• Girls in many communities are already disadvantaged in terms
of social status, lack of free time due to high burden of
domestic tasks, access to resources, and even lack of food
• The burden of care for ill parents and younger siblings
often falls on girls, which jeopardizes their ability to attend
school; this is most pronounced in AIDS-affected societies
An estimated 104 million primary school-aged
children were not enrolled in school at the turn of the millennium
with girls making up 57 percent of the total. Girls are also
more likely than boys to fail to complete secondary education
because of early marriage, pregnancy and care duties at home.
CONVENING AGENCIES
United
Nations Children's Fund
Global
Campaign for Education
RELATED DOCUMENTS
UNAIDS Issues Brief:
Educate Girls: Fight AIDS
Global Campaign for Education: Missing
the Mark: A 'School Report' on rich countries' contribution
to Universal Primary Education by 2015
Backgrounder: AIDS
and girls' education
Learing
to survive: How education for all would save millions of young
people from HIV/AIDS
Council on Foreign Relations:
What Works in Girls' Education
ActionAID:
Revisiting girls’ education in a world changed by AIDS
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