Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the educating girls is the one of the social investments in the world today that yields the biggest return. He couldn't be more right because a lot of studies have shown that educated girls don't only improve their well-being but also their families as well.
When a girl gets an education, it improves the economic well-being of their families because they earn more money. Studies also indicate that for every additional year a girl completes at secondary school, her future income has a 10 to 20 percent possibility of growth.
It's not just their families that benefit from them but their countries as well. According to a World Bank study conducted in 100 countries, for every one percent increase in women with secondary education, the country's annual per capita income increases by around 0.3 percentage points.
A UNESCO data revealed that kids who are born from mothers who know how to read have a higher chance of surviving past the age of five compared to those who are born from illiterate mothers. Moreover, educated girls are also less likely to contract HIV because they know how to take care of their health. That's because they have access to facts and information compared to those who don't know how to read.
Statistics and studies indeed have shown the difference girls make in their families and in the societies where they live. However, the reality still stands that there are still 62 million women around the globe who are uneducated. What is the problem? What is keeping these girls away from school?
According to studies, there are six major barriers that keep girls from school: the cost of education, the distance of the school, the violence happening at schools, poverty, gender norms, and early pregnancy. The only way to solve this is to challenge the norm regarding these issues by providing education to both boys and girls, even to families.
