Relearning the ABCs of girls education

[Music]

according to the unesco

women make up more than two-thirds of

the world’s 800

illiterate people and 130 million girls

worldwide

are out of school why are these shocking

numbers

still a reality in 2021 girls have the

drive to learn and there is overwhelming

evidence

that educating girls creates healthier

wealthier and more stable communities

so when girls education is so pivotal

why

isn’t every girl getting a quality

education

i am sheen originally from mauritius a

sunny island off the east coast of

madagascar

i am the first mauritian girl to have

attended both oxford and cambridge

universities

which meant that from a young age i have

been exposed to the inequality

that exists at every step of the

academic journey for girls

which is why i am now actively trying to

be an advocate for girls education

through several outreach programs in

place of the university

and the educational charity i founded

i’ve had the opportunity to work with

girls of different ages and from

different spheres of life

girls from african countries and refugee

camps with immigrant parents

girls attending state schools sadly they

have

all experienced some form of inequality

to access education

at some point in their life and these

barriers can take

very different forms and have different

extents of influence on each girl’s life

this made me realize that by blindly

bracketing all girls together

and generalizing the challenges they

face we’re not untangling the complex

network of intersecting causes

and therefore not truly solving the

problem

but before getting to the solution let

us try and gain clarity through the

stories of three girls i’ve met

let me start by introducing sarah an 18

year old syrian refugee

who has been in a refugee camp for over

two years

back in syria both my parents were

teachers

and i’ve always felt like education is

everything in life

she said she was happy to find out that

there were summer classes run by

charities in the camp and girls were

allowed to attend

however she was also sad to see her

friends drop out

for early marriage as it is considered a

quicker way to secure a stable future

outside of the camps

and to protect the girls from being

targets of sexual assault

limited access to schooling magnifies

the challenges of life in exile such as

finding work

staying healthy and holding on to

dignity and hope

it also limits the potential of refugee

girls and

women to rebuild their lives to protect

themselves

and to take a lead in shaping the lives

of their communities

now we meet taylor a 17 year old in a uk

state school

she said my teachers always said i was

hard working

no one ever used the word bright or

smart

there were so many clever boys and it

never felt like they had to do

any work to get the grades they did i

wanted to ask for help but i wasn’t

naturally good at sciences like them

so there wasn’t much point

this is heartbreaking to me learning

that young girls like taylor

can absorb and be influenced by gender

stereotypes

they pick up these gendered notions of

intelligence very early on

and this in turn affects what they

choose to pursue in terms of further

education

and career paths this is probably a

major reason why women make up less than

15 percent of all people working in stem

in the uk finally we meet aurelie

a 10 year old from a fishing village on

the east coast of africa

she said my sister and i had to drop out

of school

because my parents could no longer

afford to keep all six of us in

we had just started learning how to

manipulate numbers

and i think i was quite good at it but

now we help our parents by sorting the

octopus before selling them

education is free over there but there

are still

associated costs such as books uniforms

and transport therefore forcing parents

to still

choose which one of their children would

receive an education

since boys had a better chance of

getting a paid job of their graduation

daughters were rarely selected

evidently governmental bodies have the

funds and are actively trying to remedy

the situation

however they have neglected to consider

these associated costs

which are precisely the reasons keeping

the girls from school

the three stories i have just shared

with you have the same beginning

with a wish to learn and the same ending

with that wish

partially fulfilled at best but with

very different experiences of barriers

to education

looking back at our three stories the

barriers were firstly an

environment of unrest and emergency

secondly

school climate and the concept of social

belongingness assigned to genders

and finally the indirect cost of

education and

cultural norms these are but

a few from a range of complex

socio-economic factors responsible for

the inequality

in access to education

so how do we solve this problem this

brings me to a model i have developed

the abc model i believe that the

problems

can be solved by firstly a acknowledging

the differences in barriers to education

to different girls

it is clear now that different girls are

exposed to

different situations leading to

different barriers to access education

so let us dig deeper into what exactly

these barriers are for each girl

before we dive into creating a solution

b building the foundations to scaffold

each of them

providing solutions to specific problems

is something that we

as a global nation are generally good at

given that we have the means to identify

the right problem to solve

solutions can be tailored tested and

constantly monitored

and finally c creating opportunities to

empower girls

if we want to provide more opportunities

to girls

we should not only provide them with an

education

the perceptions of gender roles in the

workplace

need to change as well girl’s education

has to be combined with the creation of

opportunities for women

in both employment and entrepreneurship

now diving deeper into a the first step

to acknowledging the real problem

is extensive field research

a lot of aid and development work is

based on data collection

but the nature of this is problematic

let me tell you why

during interviews and surveys foreigners

with no previous experience of the local

language or culture

are usually sent over the people being

interviewed are made to feel inadequate

and are defined by terms that just bring

back

painful realizations for example

parents being asked if they feed their

children one two or three meals a day

or asking children to raise their hands

if they’re single or double orphans

meaning if they have lost one or both

parents

as a parent who cannot afford to send

their girls to school

being reminded of their inaptitude to

provide for their children

is an attack on their status which often

leads to defensive responses

making it harder to accurately

understand

their situation another dimension to

this problem

is also the biases associated with

vulnerable groups

that are intertwined within the system

people from those vulnerable groups are

usually perceived as poor decision

makers

and therefore their opinions are not

valued

even if data collection is done right

the reality is that they might make

decisions focused on coping with

present stressful situations such as

hunger often are the expenses of future

prosperity through education

an example highlighting the impact of

information gathering

is the case of a muslim village in ghana

where the attendance of girls older than

12 years old was very poor

it was assumed by international ngos and

that the problem

was the unwillingness of parents to

educate their daughters

and numerous awareness campaigns aimed

at addressing this proved to be

unsuccessful

however after proper information

gathering was carried out

alongside the local authorities it

became clear

that girls were not being sent to school

after puberty

because of the lack of gender

segregation which is deemed important

from their religious point of view

equipped with the right data the

authorities were in a better position

to acknowledge the real barrier to

education here

leading to the creation of the

appropriate solution

building a girls only school a follow-up

report a year later

found that the attendance of the girls

remained high showing that parents are

actually happy and willing to educate

their girls

once their concerns had been addressed

this easy step will now change the lives

of generations of girls in this village

in the uk i witnessed a similar case

where a lack of clarity

on the reasons for low interest from

teenage girls to pursue stem subjects

led to an ineffective outreach program

as part of the program girls are invited

to the university

to show them the fascinating and

cutting-edge work being done in various

fields from artificial intelligence and

medicine

to space technology in order to spike

interest

however most of the university

volunteers all the very well intentioned

and keen

are usually male this does

not break down the stereotypes and the

ideas of social belongingness

studies have shown that teenagers felt

they would fit in better in subjects

that had more of their own gender

showing them role models other girls and

women

whom they can relate to and speak to

about their similar experiences

makes a significant difference for these

girls

having been on a women in stem panel

myself i was very pleased to see the

level of interest and questions from the

girls

many of which are centered on how and

why we pick stem subjects

and what is it like being in a lab as a

girl

i was extremely happy to see one of the

attendees of the panel

in a first year natural sciences class i

was supervising the following year

even though we can all agree that this

might seem like common sense

and providing such a platform is a

relatively easy task

they are still absent in a lot of places

despite

being of utmost importance for these

girls

before the curved 19 crisis 130 million

girls were already

out of school and at the peak of the

pandemic

curb 19 interrupted the education of

over

1.5 billion learners as several

countries face

nationwide school closures

the disruption to education has placed

girls at higher risk of falling behind

in school

and permanently dropping out due to

exclusion from distance learning

opportunities

the pandemic has only exacerbated

existing inequalities

the unesco has estimated that globally

over 11 million girls may not return to

school

in 2021 due to the pandemic’s economic

impact alone

this will have devastating impact on

girls futures

serious and specific attention is needed

to ensure girls continuity of learning

and

return to school while protecting the

steady progress we have made in recent

years

as we start to plan a post covered world

our goal should not be a return to the

way things were

but instead a renewed commitment to the

way the world should be

a place where every girl can learn and

lead

to achieve this we must ensure our

governmental bodies societies and

education systems

work for girls and not against them

going back to our three stories we can

help each girl by following the three

steps in the abc model

a a thorough understanding of bias

and how it affects study results is

essential to provide

unprejudiced data collection

people with lived experiences have to be

involved to provide a realistic

understanding of the barriers the girls

in question

experience such as identifying the

associated cost of education

as the main barrier for oily

b brainstorming solutions based on

proper data collection

will ensure that the right support is

being given to the right audience at

the right time for example offering a

platform with female role models to

girls like taylor

will inspire the next generation of

women in stem

and finally see in the workplace

concepts a and b have to be reapplied to

address the under-representation of

women

in leadership roles despite the 50-50

gender split in the workforce in the uk

this will ensure that girls like sarah

can use education as a way to secure

stable future

outside of the refugee camps

we as a global nation have understood

that poverty and exclusion

affect girls both psychologically and

economically

and we know that if girls could be

educated and empowered to shape their

own destinies

they could change their communities and

nations forever

but before we get to that stage we must

be able to first recognize that each

girl’s problem

is uniquely distinct from that of

another’s

that’s my message to all of you today

you who will be the future decision

makers heads of companies educators and

key stakeholders in various spheres of

life

whenever you are faced with a challenge

make sure you dismantle the problem to

its specific

causes before diving into developing

solutions it is tempting to simplify

problems by bracketing them under an

umbrella term

for instance girls access to education

but these solutions

are too often limited and ineffective

change will not happen overnight but we

have the tools and knowledge to start

the systemic movement required

to bridge the gender gap in education

once and for all

join me to give the girls a chance and

trust me they’ll take

it from there