Donna Saslove And Simon Lugassy - JO LEE Magazine

INDULGENCES
Educate Girls Globally:
Education Reform That Works
By Charlotte Mills Seligman
San Francisco – California
Educating girls and
women in areas of conflict
is becoming a strategic
necessity in the fight
against terrorism. Educate
Girls Globally (EGG) has
developed a successful
education reform model
that engages teachers,
parents, students, and
government officials
to bring education to
thousands of girls who are
out of school. Lawrence
Chickering, EGG founder
and president, explains
the importance of the
issue: “As women are
educated, birth rates fall,
family health improves,
literacy increases, per
capita income grows, and
governance and political
participation improve.”
He founded EGG in 1999
and, in 2005, partnered
with the World Economic
Forum and the state
government of Rajasthan,
India, to create a model
that would work in this
impoverished and tribal
state. After two years of
operation, the program’s
results are stunning:
Reduced the number of
girls out of school by 90%
Increased the number of
children (grades III-VI)
reading Hindi from 42%
to 57%
Increased the number of
children (grades III-VI)
reading English from 15%
to 43%
Doubled the number of
children able to add and
subtract two digits from
26% to 57%
The program’s success has
resulted in the Rajasthan
government expanding it
this year from the initial
500 schools into more
than 2,300 schools to
serve more than 260,000
children, about 126,000 of
them girls. Over the next
few years, the government
anticipates implementing
the program in other
Indian impoverished
states. Half of the funding
in Rajasthan comes from
DASRA, a philanthropic
organization in India that
has pledged to support the
model from private donors
three years into the future.
According to Chickering,
the program is unique
because it works in
partnership with
government ministries to
leverage their investments
in teachers’ salaries,
textbooks, and facilities,
which brings education to
large numbers of girls at
a very low cost. “We’ve
shown that, with a mere
2% increase in their
budget, governments can
reach 25-33% more girls
and can significantly raise
learning scores in both
reading and math,” he says.
Rajasthan is one of the
most male-dominated,
traditional states in India,
and thus is generally
resistant to change. EGG’s
Community Activation
Model has proven
successful in reversing
men’s response to girls’
education from negative to
positive.
The improvements in
learning are the result of
the Creative Learning
Teaching (CLT) program,
which was developed
by an NGO in West
Bengal and replaces the
rote memorization that’s
prevalent in many school
systems. “It increases
student involvement and
self-esteem and keeps the
children in school,” says
EGG’s Executive Director,
Safeena Husain.
Chickering believes that
EGG’s model can become
a powerful instrument
in counterinsurgency
strategies. The U.S.
military invited him and
Husain to visit Afghanistan
to explore use of the model
there, and the command
in Kabul is currently
considering two proposals
from EGG to work there.
“When you give people a
stake in the school system,”
Chickering says, “You
promote a positive concept
of citizenship, and you
give them a reason to resist
forces that are trying to
bring the system down.”
Given the crippling
poverty, religious
extremism, and abuse of
girls and women in many
of the world’s most volatile
regions, EGG’s education
model offers hope for
change.
JL
Jo Lee Power 2011 51