Because I am a Girl - Plan USA

Preparing supper
in India.
in four countries over 15 years. It is led by
a team in the Department of International
Development at the University of Oxford in
association with research and policy partners
in the four study countries: Ethiopia, India,
Peru and Vietnam. 19 It found that in Andhra
Pradesh, India, parents tended to send
their sons to private school, which they felt
provided the best education and where they
could learn English and therefore have better
employment prospects. Girls, however, were
more likely to go to government schools if
parents had to make the choice.
In 2002, when the first round of data was
collected, 11 per cent of boys and nine per
cent of girls aged eight in rural areas were in
private education. In 2009, the figures were
39 per cent of boys and 23 per cent of girls.
Kirrily Pells of ‘Young Lives’ notes that: “This
illustrates not only the growth of private
education, especially in rural areas, but that
the gender gap is widening. This puts a large
strain on household finances, with parents
reporting taking out loans to pay for fees.
These debt traps will inevitably impact on
equality and in turn on poverty reduction.” 20
Boys, valued as future wage earners, are
often seen by parents as a priority when
C o n n e l l y L a M a r
M a r k H e n l e y / P a n o s P i c t u r e s
it comes to schooling. Girls may be kept at
home to do the housework and look after
younger siblings. Taklitin Walet Farati, a
non-governmental organisation fieldworker
in Mali, who tries to persuade girls’ parents
to let them go to school, said that the
opportunity costs are a significant barrier to
girls’ education. “I’d go and check why girls
weren’t attending school, to be told by their
mothers, ‘We can’t let our daughters go to
school. We need them in the home. They are
our hands and feet!’” 21
Fadimata Alainchar, Plan Country Director
for Guinea-Bissau, notes that in many parts
of Africa: “There is the mindset that girls
don’t need education to succeed in life; they
need a wealthy husband. Many teachers
don’t see the need for the girls to be
educated at all.”
Pupils’ own views are shaped at home
from an early age. Changing parental
attitudes remains really important, and the
family decision-maker, more often than not
the father, will need to be convinced of the
value of educating daughters.
“Daddy, send me to school!”
Haydi Kizlar Okula, a programme in Turkey,
has reached 120,000 girls since 2003.
Volunteers, including teachers and
community leaders, conduct door-to-door
interviews with parents.
The volunteers go prepared with
scripted answers to parents’ objections
to sending their daughters to school –
poverty, long distances to travel, fear for
girls’ safety, early marriage, lack of school
relevance, need for her labour in and out
of the home, and religious prohibitions.
Each protest is met with an answer that
supports enrolling girls in school.
On the way
to school in
Turkey.
The interaction not only advocates girls’
education, it also identifies hidden
barriers to schooling. Parents reported
that they sometimes failed to enrol their
children in school because of late or
incorrectly filed birth registrations; fines
for late birth registrations have since been
abolished.
Neighbourhood mobilisation is
reinforced by television spots featuring
celebrities urging girls to go to school,
public announcements about education
in print and electronic media, and the
distribution of promotional fliers, posters,
brochures, booklets and videos.
Offshoots from the Haydi Kizlar Okula
campaign include a newspaper’s
independent push for girls’ education,
pleading the case with the slogan
“Daddy, send me to school!”
Additionally, the Willows Foundation,
a non-governmental organisation, has
visited 120,000 homes and enrolled
9,000 out-of-school girls. The Foundation
has developed a registration system with
colour-coded cards based on the obstacle
that has hampered school attendance.
There is a follow-up visit by teachers in a
parallel system to the national campaign.
Coffee-house projects have also
sprouted in parts of Turkey, building
on the tradition of hospitality and
conversation. Volunteers lead discussions
about girls’ education in local coffee
houses, usually with men. In a relaxed,
supportive environment, men speak
about their concerns with advocates, who
then reassure them that sending their
daughters to school is a good decision. 22
Percentage of 13-15 year olds who have ever attended school 24
50 60 70
Latin America
Southeast Asia
1990-99
2000-06
1990-99
2000-06
50 60 70
Boys Girls
D a n i e l S i l v a
Boys doing badly
“The girls are more motivated, because
we see at school that girls want something
more than the boys: the boys just want
to play, the girls don’t, they’re interested
when the teacher tells about the homework.
The boys don’t, they just play, ‘Ah, ma’am,
I didn’t do it’; and they lie, ‘I didn’t do it
because I went to work’. I think this is why
girls achieve more than boys.”
Thais, 11, from Brazil, taking part in a focus
group for Plan for this report 23
A gender gap has been emerging in schools
in some countries in recent years, and it is
not what the general public might expect. In
the past, it was always boys who did best at
school. But in the Global North and in Latin
America and the Caribbean, girls are now
overtaking boys, both in terms of their exam
results and of how long they stay in school,
as the chart below shows.
In the same regions, the study found that
girls were also achieving the same or better
80 90 100
80 90 100
Having a
laugh in Peru.
96.2
97.3
97.4
98.1
98.6
97.5
98.7
99.0
60 the s tate of the world’s girls 61