The Power and Promise of Girls' Education - Save the Children

Studying for a Better Future
The children of Oruro – a town high in Bolivia’s Altiplano – are some of the poorest in all of
South America. For decades, educational achievement, nutritional status and life expectancy
have been below the standards for the rest of South America, and for Bolivia as a whole.
Things are changing in Bolivia now, and 10-year-old Daniela is just one example of how girls’
education is contributing to a brighter future. A generation ago, chances are that Daniela
would have been among the 70 percent of indigenous girls who never completed primary
school. Today, she is an enthusiastic fifth grader in the Carmen Guzmán de Mier School, which
is supported by Save the Children, and Daniela has her sights set on a professional career.
“My favorite subjects are mathematics and technology,” says Daniela.“And I enjoy the
multiple-purpose classroom, which we call the library. It has games and books that we can
use. If I weren’t studying, I would have to go to the field to take care of sheep just like my
friend Marlene. She does not go to school and she does not speak Spanish.”
“When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer or an engineer. If I don’t study I will have to work as
a household servant in other people’s homes. I want my life to be different than my mother’s
life.” Daniela expects that when she becomes a professional, she will have enough money to
help her family and pay for health care if she gets sick. She would like to get married when
she is 25 and have two children, a boy and a girl.“When I have children, they will have better
opportunities than I did, because I will educate them.”
“It’s important that girls
and boys receive the same
education, because it helps us
to learn to work together,”
says Daniela, a fifth-grader in
Oruro, Bolivia.
provided to supplement family income and offset the
direct and indirect costs of schooling. Bilingual teaching
materials were distributed and bilingual teachers were
trained so that monolingual indigenous children would
have a smoother transition from home to the school
environment. And school schedules were revamped
so that school days would not coincide with the busy
harvest season when children are frequently
Methodology: The following indicators were used to
construct an unweighted index: current percentage of
women parliamentarians; current female literacy levels;
current proportion of national budget allocated to
education. Countries were then ranked on their index
scores. Any country with a low index score on any other
Forecast-related index was discarded. Among remaining
countries, those that had well-documented programs
related to the expansion of educational opportunities for
all children (and for girls in particular) along with welldocumented
results for these programs were highlighted
in the Forecast.
Rationale: The percentage of women parliamentarians
appears to both influence and benefit from girls’ enrollment
rates and gender parity. Developing countries with women
in government do better on basic indicators related to girls’
access to and participation in education. There is also a
positive correlation between female literacy and female
parliamentarians (see chart on page 15). Government
spending on education (as a proportion of total budget) is a
strong and direct measure of a government’s commitment
to achieving education for all. Educational attainment is a
prerequisite for most of the Millennium Development
Goals.To achieve the goals, low-income countries must
ensure that each person has the essential means for leading
a productive life. This, in turn, is dependent upon skills and
knowledge as well as the ability to exercise one’s political,
social and economic rights. Schooling has been shown to
make a substantial contribution in each of these areas.
withdrawn from school to help in the fields or with
chores in the home.
The Education Reform Law, together with the special
efforts made to reach girls most likely to never attend
school, have produced dramatic changes that favor
Bolivia’s future development. Net enrollment rates rose
from 65 to 94 percent. Girls and boys achieved the same
net enrollment levels, thus closing a significant gender
gap. Completion rates (the percentage of students
completing the primary school cycle) rose from 10 to
78 percent, due in large measure to the increased
participation in schooling by girls. 73
A long-term study, completed in 2002, examined
the impact of improved women’s literacy and
access to basic education in Bolivia. Particular
attention was given to how improved
educational opportunities for women
influenced their children’s education, family
health and reproductive health, participation
in economic activities, household
decision-making, community
participation, and awareness
of legal rights. 74 The
research affirms that,
within the Bolivian
context, greater female
literacy leads to a host
of development
outcomes intimately
linked to meeting
the Millennium
Development Goals.
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THE POWER AND PROMISE OF GIRLS’ EDUCATION