Archive for category: Education

Information and stories on education.

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Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Costa Rica

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Costa Rica
From rainforest tours to deep-sea diving adventures, Costa Rica has made a name for itself in the fields of travel and tourism. The country is primarily known for these reasons and the conversations about other positive aspects in the country, such as the continuous improvement in education, are often left out.

Costa Rica is dedicated to its famed biodiversity but has also taken immense steps to improve its youth’s education, especially for girls. The article below details the top 10 facts about girls’ education in Costa Rica.

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Costa Rica

  1. Costa Rica is among the 25 countries that have closed the educational gender gap. The country has one of the highest education levels in Latin America since it began implementing gender equality legislation in the 1990s. This legislation made the government responsible for guaranteeing equal opportunities for men and women in education, which includes technical education.
  2. The country was quicker than most countries to ensure quality education to both boys and girls. In 2000, the Government of Costa Rica created the Gender Equity Office in the Ministry of Public Education to speed up gender equality and equity between men in women in the education system.
  3. Costa Rica spends more money on education than any other Latin American country. As of 2018, 4 percent of the country’s total Gross National Product (GNP) and about one-fourth of the national government budget is devoted to education. This number is comparable to many industrialized countries and more girls can enroll in primary school.
  4. To increase the chances of girls’ enrollment in secondary education, Costa Rica has created a plan to change family health. This governmental plan addresses the education barrier girls commonly face like pregnancy which is a growing issue as 13 percent of girls enrolled in Costa Rican schools are either pregnant or are already mothers.
  5. Girls have a higher enrollment rate in tertiary level education than boys. The percentage of girls in this level of education is at 59.8 percent, while the boys are at 46.6 percent. As a country that is often cornered in conversations about education, this higher education enrollment rate is impressive. In comparison, according to the World Bank’s data, the world’s average for girls enrolled in tertiary education is only 38.9 percent.
  6. With the improvement in girls’ education, more economic and job opportunities are being created for women. In 2000, 76.6 percent of Costa Rica’s female population were working for wage or salary. In 2016, this rate increased to 83.7 percent, while the employment rate for their male counterparts was at 75 percent.
  7. The girls’ primary school enrollment rate is substantive today. In the last 20 years, the rate has increased substantially. Today, nearly 97 percent of girls are enrolled in primary school and an average of 97.3 percent complete this stage of their education, passing boys that are at 95 percent.
  8. Upon graduating from primary school, 84.5 percent of girls go to secondary school, while 96.6 percent of boys do. This is due to the country’s high teen pregnancy rate. Organizations like Soy Niña (I’m a girl) are helping to increase girls’ enrollment in secondary school by holding learning sessions across the country that provide girls with tools to improve their self-esteem, critical thinking, leadership, problem-solving and conflict resolution skills.
  9. In 2017, for the first time ever, Costa Rica and other countries participated in the first International Day of Women and Girls in Science in the country. The San Jose UNESCO office, alongside the National Institute of Women, spent the day celebrating efforts to increase girls’ participation in science education. Today, women make up only 28 percent of scientific researchers.
  10. According to UNESCO, the Latin American country has set several other goals to reach by 2030. One of the goals is the continuation of decreasing the number of girls who dropped out of school. As of 2016, only 6,000 girls had dropped out, while six years prior almost 10,000 had.

Costa Rica’s commitment to bettering girls’ education is not only inspiring, but their methods could serve as a guide to other countries. As exemplified in the top 10 facts about girls’ education in Costa Rica above, providing girls with a quality education does not just benefit the students, but the country as a whole, as new economic opportunities are created and a stronger workforce is built.

If Costa Rica continues to make strides like the ones described, it is only a matter of time before they become known worldwide for much more than their coffee and scenic travel destinations.

– Haley Newlin
Photo: Flickr

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Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in El Salvador

Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in El Salvador
In the 1980s, El Salvador was involved in conflict associated with protests, kidnapping and gang violence.

During this time, children in El Salvador faced hardships such as the lack of secondary education, limited job opportunities and early pregnancy.

The education sector was affected by the conflicts happening in the country. Military combat led to the destruction of some schools which prevented children from attending their classes. Today, education has improved and El Salvador has gained support from many beneficial programs.

Issues still remain and need to be improved, and one of the most important ones is supporting education equality between male and female students. In the article below, top 10 facts about girls’ education in El Salvador and the differentiation in education between the genders in the country are presented.

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in El Salvador

  1. Due to the culture in the country that as implies the El Salvadorian women running the household while the men bring in income, girls usually spend a lesser amount of time in school compared to boys. Boys spend around 4.6 years in school while girls only spend around 3.4 years. Many girls are forced to end their education prematurely in order to help with duties at home.
  2. Gang violence, abuse and the threats made towards girls while being in school make it difficult for them to maintain an education. In 2015, 30 schools reported the act of sexual violence or misconduct towards the girls in school. It is nearly impossible for a girl in El Salvador to gain justice when many of the cases are not reported, and does that are, are rarely investigated.
  3. Girls as young as 12 are pressured to start a family. Having to maintain so much responsibility leads to education exclusion for females while males continue education. Logically, boys have a better chance at pursuing a career due to the advantage of staying in school longer.
  4. Based on statistics in Santa Catarina Masahuat, 92 percent of children complete primary education. Out of this number, 98 percent are boys and 86 percent are girls. Statistics at a national level, estimated by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, showed that the gross enrollment ratio for females who attended secondary school stood at 74.24 percent in 2016. In comparison, enrollment in 1970 was 19.64 percent. The gross enrollment ratio in 2016 was, however, higher for men than women.
  5. In 2015, El Salvador’s literacy rate was estimated to be about 88 percent. The literacy rate for men was around 90 percent and for women was 86.2 percent. These statistics include people aged 15 and above.
  6. Marriage is illegal in El Salvador if you are under the age of 18, however, Article 14 of the nations family code made underage marriage possible under certain circumstances. These circumstances allowed for a girl to be forced into marriage if she was pregnant at 13 with no consent required.
  7. UNICEF El Salvador continues to advocate for children’s rights. In 2017, the Legislative Assembly voted to prohibit child marriage. By doing so, the country office used social media and the U-report platform to inform the public about sexual violence and early child marriage of the young girls. A survey was issued to ask for opinions on how to eradicate child marriage. About 70 percent of the U-report survey takers claimed that they know a young girl either married, pregnant or already a parent.
  8. Parliament of El Salvador closed the loophole in the child marriage law in August 2017. This is a huge step towards enabling the rights for girls education in El Salvador. This gives them hope they need to continue their future in education. Carmen Elena Aleman, Country Director for Plan International in El Salvador, stated that there is still much to do and that it will take time to change the practices and beliefs that are so deeply entrenched within the society. The responsible people must redouble their efforts to raise awareness of the damage this practice does to girls’ lives in the communities.
  9. According to UNICEF, education for girls is extremely important and has a multiplier effect. Girls that receive education are more likely to marry later and conceive fewer children which benefits their health and their education. These girls will then grow up with better social and work skills that will enable them better lives.
  10. UNICEF supports gender equality and has set the Gender Action Plan (GAP). This plan empowers young girls who were at risk of child marriage or who are already married by building support networks and providing them with life skills. Strategies are created to prevent violence and discrimination against girls and boys in school or in general. GAP is the roadmap to gender equality and opportunities in El Salvador but worldwide as well.

Girls’ education in El Salvador is a lot different than boys education in the country, considering the facts listed above. Although education has improved for girls, there are still changes that need to be made.

With the support of programs like GAP and organizations like UNICEF, hope is given to young girls in continuing on with an education and a healthier lifestyle. Plans like this one create a stepping stool to gender equality and poverty eradication.

– Kathleen Smith
Photo: Flickr

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Efforts to Improve Girls’ Education in Djibouti

Efforts to Improve Girls Education in Djibouti
Educating young people is one of the first steps to decreasing extreme poverty in many underdeveloped countries of the world. In Djibouti, this fact has been recognized and progress is being made to educate children. The special attention is on educating young girls in the country.

Statistics of Education in Djibouti

In four short years, between 2002 and 2006, net school enrollment in Djibouti rose from 43 percent to 66 percent. This was viewed as amazing progress at the time, but it was still unsatisfactory. In order to meet the standards of the Millenium Development Goals, Djibouti needed to lessen the statistic that showed that one of three children is not attending school. The final goal of the government is to get all its boys and girls into school.

Within the statistic mentioned above, the majority of the children not attending school were girls. To fix this, the focus was on bettering girls’ education in the country. Two organizations that have done an amazing job on girls education in Djibouti are UNICEF and Global Partnership for Education Efforts.

UNICEF Efforts

UNICEF discovered, without any surprise, that the main reasons why girls are not enrolled in schools were directly correlated with poverty and social problems. These reasons included the fact that most of the girls out of school were orphans, homeless and neglected. Other factors that affected this statistic were health problems and disabilities.

UNICEF implemented the Basic Education and Gender Equality Program which was composed of three components: equal access to educational facilities, quality of primary education and non-formal education. Each component had subtopics within them.

The most important and impactful ones were social mobilization efforts, creating mass media educational systems, promoting child-friendly school systems, increasing teacher training, increasing women involvement in teaching, better access for children from rural areas and the development of alternative teaching methods.

Global Partnership for Education Efforts

The Global Partnership for Education Efforts partnered with the Djibouti government for the first time in 2006. Their education sector plan for the country is a nine-year program, planned from 2010 to 2019.

This organization has very similar goals as UNICEF, which makes sense since these are partner programs. However, it is still important that yet another organization pushes hard for equal education rights in the country.

The program has six main objectives. The first is developing a pre-school system that connects rural, urban, private and public sectors so that everyone receives the same education across the board. For primary education, their second goal is to have 100 percent of eligible children enrolled by 2019. They have settled for 79 percent for secondary education, understanding the need to work in some situations.

The third goal is to eliminate the gender disparity. The organization understands the importance of bridging the gap between genders so that girls can become future leaders, teachers and lawmakers who will continue to fight for equal rights for all citizens in Djibouti. This goal is the most important one from the standpoint of improving the girls’ education in Djibouti. The remaining goals all have to do with reform on every level that interacts with the education system in Djibouti. Global Partnership for Education has many strategies that they are using to reach these goals.

The government of Djibouti has been aware of the need to increase school enrollment of girls since the early 21st century. Since then, they have been working with organizations like UNICEF and Global Partnership to fix disparities.

Being aware and making moves to fix things are some of the most important steps to fixing a problem, especially one concerning poverty and education rights. The fight for increasing girls’ education in Djibouti is not over yet.

Global Partnership still regularly updates their progress on the matter, with their most recent article being from October 2018. Keeping hope alive and working together matters most in these harsh times.

– Miranda Garbaciak
Photo: Flickr

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Top 10 Fact About Girls’ Education in Jamaica

Top 10 Fact About Girls’ Education in Jamaica
Jamaica has a history, like many countries in the world, of oppressing women. One major issue of gender equality involves access to adequate education. Girls’ education in this country was only recently established, especially compared to boys’ education, but focus on closing this gender gap creates improvements. In the text below, top 10 facts about girls’ education in Jamaica are presented.

Top 10 Fact About Girls’ Education in Jamaica

  1. Girls’ education in Jamaica only involved home economics and some other basic classes up until around 1944. With the implementation of The Kandel Report and the associated Plan for Post-Primary Education, universal literary core for both boys and girls was established.
  2. Today, women are dominating school enrollment, closing the gender gap in education. According to a News America Now article, out of the total population of 2.7 in Jamaica, around 40 percent of women go into tertiary education. That’s 2.29 times more than the number of men going to universities and colleges.
  3. According to the Jamaica Observer, despite the non-existent gender gap in education and the fact the women are more educated than men in Jamaica, women still earn much less in the workforce.
  4. Women are more likely to do unpaid household labor, have less say in decision-making, and less access to resources. This fact is reflected in a 2017 study that found that women’s income in Jamaica is 39 percent lower than men’s.
  5. Further globalization can help close this gender disparity in income among educated men and women by connecting women to more business and economic opportunities.
  6. Apart from gender parity education enrollment, a pressing issue for girls’ education in Jamaica revolves around teenage pregnancy, mostly due to poverty, limited reproductive health care and sexual abuse. According to Brookings, Jamaica’s teen pregnancy rate is higher than the global average, with 59 out of 1,000 adolescent girls becoming pregnant.
  7. The education policy states that pregnant teens must be dismissed from school until they are allowed to re-enroll once they have the baby. This deprives teen mothers of the education they need and often discourages them to go back.
  8. In an attempt to establish inclusive education for all, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information implemented the National Policy for the Reintegration of School-Age Mothers into the Formal School System in 2013. The policy was a significant step toward ensuring that young mothers return to school and complete an education, thus improving their chances to provide for themselves and their children.
  9. Upon returning to school, there is often a huge lack of support and counseling for teenage mothers. The policy must focus on more care for mothers returning to school to improve enrollment rates and prevent discrimination that diverts many teen mothers from returning to school.
  10. The Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation works to ensure that teen mothers return to school by providing counseling, maternal support, skills training for those unable to return to school, and early interventions providing resources to prevent early unwanted pregnancies.

These top 10 facts about girls’ education in Jamaica can help communities improve gender equality even further. The education system for girls has come a long way, but there are still many ways to improve teen mothers access to education and closing the gender gap within jobs after school.

With programs such as The Ministry of Education and The Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation, more girls are able to gain access to quality education. Integrating more globalization and evaluating women’s income will also help Jamaica reach gender equality in the education-career aspect, as these top 10 facts about girls’ education in Jamaica show.

– Anna Power
Photo: Pixabay

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Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in The Gambia

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in The Gambia
In the most densely populated country in West Africa, girls face significant barriers to education. But despite obstacles like traditional gender norms and the vicious poverty cycle that followed British colonialism, The Gambia has made impressive strides in making education more accessible for girls.

Here are the top 10 facts about girls’ education in The Gambia.

Top Ten Facts About Girls’ Education in The Gambia

  1. Primary schools have achieved gender parity. Hopes for girls’ education in The Gambia are high, especially for the youngest girls. Since 2007, there has been an equal number of Gambian boys and girls enrolled in primary school. A significant portion of this success can be attributed to the Education for All initiative, which was implemented by UNESCO in 2004.
  2. Primary school completion remains a hurdle. While the primary school enrollment gap has disappeared, primary school completion is a different picture. For every 100 boys that complete their basic education, only 74 girls do the same. From 2009 to 2012, the girls’ primary school completion rate dropped from 82 percent to 70 percent. Additionally, out of the girls that do complete basic education, few will go on to secondary school.
  3. Secondary school enrollment is unequal across genders. In The Gambia, the net secondary school enrollment rate is low to begin with, and girls only constitute approximately 30 percent of all students enrolled in secondary or vocational schools.
  4. Social expectations place pressure on girls. The traditional family structure values a girl’s role in domestic labor, from cooking and cleaning to caring for younger siblings. Especially as girls get older, there is an added opportunity cost to attending school: girls are unable to complete the plethora of tasks thrown at them––and they are unable to earn immediate income for their families.
  5. Girls in rural areas face unique obstacles. The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) for girls living in urban areas was 73 percent, while the GER for girls in rural areas was 63 percent, as of 1999. But in one region farthest from the capital, girls’ GER was only 44 percent.
  6. School fees have been eliminated. In September 2013, the Global Partnership for Education partnered with the World Bank and The Gambian government to eliminate school fees for primary school. For families who could previously not afford to send their daughters to school, primary school became accessible. In September 2014, this was extended to upper basic and secondary schools as well.
  7. Scholarships for girls are available. Before school fees were abolished, Gambian government scholarships specifically for girls were available to encourage poor families to send their daughters to school. This government scholarship program increased girls’ school enrollment by nine percent. Still, many indirect costs, such as textbooks and uniforms, still place a disproportionate burden on poor families. But these top 10 facts about girls’ education in The Gambia reflect that the Gambian government is making girls’ education a priority: they now provide merit-based scholarships to alleviate these indirect costs.
  8. Mothers’ Clubs encourage girls. Across The Gambia, 90 Mothers’ Clubs are raising money and awareness for girls’ education. UNICEF provides labor-saving machines: less time working means more time for school. UNICEF also provides seed money for the women to embark on income-generating projects to support their local schools and alleviate the aforementioned indirect costs of girls’ education.
  9. Menstrual hygiene at school is improving. Historically, menstruation has forced girls to take time off from school, making it difficult to keep up with coursework. To address this, the Education for All initiative began providing free sanitary pads at schools. Studies showed that this initiative significantly increased girls’ self-confidence and school attendance rates. After sanitary pads were supplied, girls’ attendance increased from 68 percent up to nearly 90 percent.
  10. Take Our Daughters to Work inspires young girls. An initiative called “Take Our Daughters to Work” pairs young Gambian girls with female mentors. For one week, girls shadow their mentors at work, build important professional connections, and get a glimpse of what their futures can look like.

These top 10 facts about girls’ education in The Gambia show that despite social barriers, focused government initiatives and a dedicated community have the potential to change the status quo.

– Ivana Bozic
Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Developing Countries

Top 10 Facts About Girls' Education in Developing Countries
Girls’ education in developing countries is proving to be an important factor in improving these nation’s quality of life. Educational equality is not only a lucrative asset to a country’s economy, but also reduces rates of child malnutrition and decreases the wage gap between men and women in many developing countries. The top 10 facts about girls’ education in developing countries that will be presented below will help to illustrate the global situation regarding the participation of girls and women in general in the classrooms of developing countries.

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Developing Countries

  1. Girls’ education affects a nation’s economy. According to the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), when girls receive an education, it increases their ability to gain access to higher paying jobs. This adds to a nation’s economy and increases a woman’s involvement in politics. Investing in girls’ education provides a boost to a developing country’s progress and acts as a catalyst for gender equality on multiple levels.
  2. Provided with an education, girls are more likely to earn a higher income later in life, increasing their family’s overall quality of life. Globally, if all girls received a primary education, 1.7 million children would be rescued from poverty-induced malnutrition. In addition, if all girls worldwide received a secondary education, 12.2 million children could avoid malnutrition and stunted growth.
  3. In 2013, UNESCO reported that nearly 25 percent of all girls in developing countries have not completed primary school, and that out of the 774 million people in the world who are illiterate, two-thirds are women.
  4. Education equality has been on the rise in many countries. Thanks to the Global Partnership for Education’s (GPE) and many other organizations efforts, the total number of girls enrolled in school worldwide increased by 38 million in the period from 2002 to 2015.
  5. Many factors play into the inequality seen in educational systems in numerous developing countries, such as India, where for every 100 boys not enrolled in primary school there are 426 girls. Often, poverty is the primary reason for this discrepancy. When families struggle to send multiple children to class, male children are often prioritized. Many girls in developing countries are oppressed by traditional gender roles that marginalize a female’s role in society.
  6. For every year of secondary school completed, there is an increase in woman’s income by 25 percent. This may seem logical, but many people do not think this way.
  7. Girl’s education can prevent pregnancy in childhood. For each year that a girl in a developing nation is in school, her first child is delayed by 10 months. Pregnancy in childhood can prevent a girl from receiving an education which decreases the chances of her child suffering from malnutrition and disease.
  8. If all women worldwide received a secondary education, this would prevent the deaths of 3 million children.
  9. Girls’ education in developing countries reduces the gender gap found in the workplaces of many progressing countries. UNESCO found that Pakistani women with a primary education made 51 percent of what their male counterparts made. This number was increased to 70 percent when a woman completed her secondary education.
  10. In Somalia, 95 percent of girls aged from 7 to 16 have never been to school. This is the highest instance of educational inequality found worldwide. This statistic affects girls later in life, where Somali women aged from 17 to 22 have received four months of schooling their entire life on average.

Going forward, improvements to girls’ education in developing countries will provide these countries with a more knowledgeable workforce, healthier families, less early-life pregnancies and lower wage gaps often found between men and women.

By providing women with the chance to better themselves academically, our global community has made us all the richer. With the number of girls’ enrolling in school increasing every year, gender equality in developing countries worldwide is becoming a reality.

– Jason Crosby
Photo: Flickr

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Learn to Live Campaign: UK Students and Students in Conflict Areas

Top Five Nonprofits Combatting Human Trafficking
War Child, a nonprofit organization that supports and educate the children affected by wars, in association with British newspapers, Evening Standard and Independent, launched the Learn to Live Campaign.

As a part of this campaign, students in the United Kingdom have connected with students in conflict areas around the world. By pairing U.K. classrooms with other classrooms worldwide, the campaign hopes to encourage empathy, understanding and support across borders. With this new understanding, students in the U.K. can learn about students around the world and become their advocates.

Education of Young People in Conflict Areas

According to the Global Partnership for Education, 21.5 million children, 15 million adolescents, and 26 million youth that are out-of-school worldwide live in 32 countries affected by conflict. Needless to say, these young people need educational support. Recently, humanitarian efforts have focused more on this need and over the past five years, requests for education funding in emergencies have risen by 21 percent.

Despite the desperate need for improvement of this situation, only 2.7 percent of humanitarian aid went towards education efforts in 2016. Education should be a focus for humanitarian efforts since access to education directly affects young people’s lives and their future.

Providing young people with quality education and support does only help them overcome the circumstances of war, but also lowers the risk of conflict. In fact, education helps make conflict less prevalent and reduces the risk of conflict by approximately 20 percent. Therefore, educating young people in conflict areas is an important investment not only to individual students but also to the future of conflict-stricken parts of the world.

The Work of Learn to Live Campaign

The Learn to Live Campaign aims to broaden understanding and compassion and it centers around facilitating communication between British students and students in conflict areas. Students send video messages and letters back and forth, detailing their personal lives and challenges.

This exchange of information enables students in U.K. to learn about the reality of students in other parts of the world. In conflict areas, these relationships can give students psychosocial support by making them feel heard and understood by their peers. As the campaign teaches U.K. students about other parts of the world, it also draws attention to the needs of students in conflict areas.

The Art Project

Recently, Andria Zafirakou, an art teacher who was named world’s best teacher in 2018, started an art project, incorporated in Learn to Live campaign, for students from all of the participating U.K. schools. Currently, four U.K. schools have paired with students affected by conflict in Jordan, Iraq and the Central African Republic. 

The art project challenges students to spell “Learn to Live” with materials found in their environments. Several schools are working on the art project, and their works will eventually be combined into one piece. As one of the participating students, Harriet Webster, commented, the art project “is something people will understand, as they will have seen something similar in newspapers or online all over the world.”

Zafirakou also notes the importance of the campaign in expanding British advocacy for global issues. In Zafirakou’s view, The Learn to Live Campaign will educate and empower British children, then those children will go on to raise awareness in their own school and communities, and become a really powerful force. Thus, the campaign’s effects have the potential to spread far beyond the classrooms and the students themselves.

Support for the Campaign

The Learn to Live Campaign has gained wide support in the U.K., from London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, to celebrities, such as Sam Smith and Richard Curtis. In addition to backing up the project, Khan has encouraged Londoners to get involved. In his words, “children living in areas of conflict deserve our unconditional compassion, as well as our solidarity and support.”

The growing visibility and reach of The Learn to Live Campaign will continue to foster empathy and support for students in conflict areas. Luckily, other students will follow the example and get in touch with their underprivileged peers.

– Morgan Harden
Photo: Flickr

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The Outlook for Sustainable Development Goals

Outlook for Sustainable Development
In 2015, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to expand upon the progress of the Millennium Development Goals that were set from 2000 to 2015.

Comprised of 17 goals, the SDGs address issues such as poverty, education and health with the overall aim of achieving worldwide peace and prosperity by 2030. Three years into the initial reports on the outlook for Sustainable Development Goals express skepticism that these goals can be reached at the current rate of progress. The problems in meeting these goals are described below.

Eliminating Poverty

According to the World Bank, the rate of poverty reduction that more than halved the world population of people living in extreme poverty from 1990 to 2015 is currently in decline. The organization estimates that the annual rate of poverty reduction that was 2.5 percent from 2011 to 2013, will decrease to less than half a percentage point.

The World Bank has also calculated that the bottom 40 percent of people in terms of income would need to see a yearly income increase of eight percent or more for the next 12 years in order to meet the first SDG of reducing the global poverty rate to 3 percent or lower. The report also notes that income growth never reached this height from 2000 to 2015, despite the notable progress in poverty reduction during these years.

Improving Education

Although the information is scarce, the available data suggests that the current rate of progress in education is also too slow to meet designated targets by 2030. In its 2018 report, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) projects that at least 22 million children worldwide will be unable to participate in pre-primary education unless the current rate of progress doubles in countries that lag behind.

Low reading proficiencies among 15-year-old adolescents are of additional concern. According to the same UNICEF report, 26 percent of countries and 36 percent of 15-year-olds need to see faster improvement in reading proficiency in order to meet the target for quality education. This is without accounting the 70 percent of countries and 61 percent of 15-year-olds for which there is little or no data.

Providing Better Health Care

Along with education, health is considered one of the most important factors in fostering economic and other forms of development. The Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Report provides recent data and future projections for 18 SDG indicators as a way of tracking the overall progress of the initiative, the majority of them pertaining to health. According to the 2018 report, the U.N. estimates that by 2030:

  • Mortality of children under the age of 5 will be reduced from 3,9 percent of live births to 2,6 percent, which is 1,4 higher than the target.
  • The rate of stunting in children under the age of 5 will be reduced from 27 percent to 22 percent, which is 7 percent above the target.
  • Basic vaccines will be available to anywhere from 74 to 90 percent of the world population, falling short of the goal to be accessible to all people.
  • Neglected tropical diseases will see a decrease from 17,000 to 13,000 per 100,000 people, well above the goal of 15,000 cases per 100,000.
  • Universal health coverage will be available to 72 percent of the global population, 3 percentage points higher than in 2017 but well below the goal of achieving universal coverage for everyone.

The Good News in the Outlook for Sustainable Development Goals

While the outlook for sustainable development in each of these reports is not ideal in terms of the time it will take to be achieved, data trends still show progress, not regression, in development. With 12 years remaining, the United Nations is still in the initial stages of its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. If the projections for 2030 fall short of the targets for the SDGs, they at least provide a better understanding of the extent of the resources necessary to improve the outlook for sustainable development goals going forward.

In consideration of the data, the World Bank, UNICEF and the Gates Foundation have all called for increased investment in world development. As a specific example, the World Bank has invested $3.2 billion in education programs for girls between 2016 and 2018, exceeding a commitment of $2.5 billion.

If all actors in the 2030 Agenda follow suit, the current outlook for Sustainable Development Goals does not have to determine the final extent of the world’s progress.

– Ashley Wagner
Photo: Flickr

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EARTH University: Students Alleviating Poverty

EARTH University
Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda, otherwise known by its acronym EARTH University, is located in the Limon province of Costa Rica. Situated in the middle of beautiful, sprawling jungles, the university focuses on teaching sustainable development and entrepreneurship for students to apply in their communities. EARTH University’s vision statement reads: “Our actions are mission-driven to alleviate poverty, promote social justice and build a future where our communities achieve sustainable and shared prosperity.” Their aim is to alleviate global poverty one person at a time. Below are 5 facts about EARTH University, the work they do and the innovative students changing the world.

5 Facts About EARTH University

  1. The university offers a large selection of scholarship opportunities for students from rural communities across the world. The student body is composed of less than 500 students, and 70 percent of the students have received full scholarships. This allows their outreach to impact and lay the groundwork in disadvantaged communities, as well as create ways to alleviate poverty without relying on charity and donations. This leads to a more independent way of sustainability.
  2. Due to their focus on agriculture, location amidst fertile jungle soil and the inheritance of a banana plantation, EARTH University is able to sustain development through profits from these sources. Grown in eco-friendly and sustainable ways, the university’s bananas are known as some of the best in the world and are distributed in Whole Food locations across the United States and Canada. 
  3. EARTH focuses on a hands-on education backed by the notion of “learning by doing.” Students are encouraged to work with their hands and are all responsible for the continued thriving of the university and its resources. For example, the student cafeteria is stocked with sustainable meat and produce grown by students on EARTH University farms.
  4. Due to the level of dedication committed by each student and faculty member, students are able to pinpoint where the agricultural sector is lacking and how to improve upon its structures. More importantly, students are able to apply this skill in their home communities and create a more efficient type of agriculture suited to their environment.
  5. The structure of EARTH University is one that is unique and efficient. Universities around the world are beginning to create similar structures that place a higher focus on social and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, study abroad and internship opportunities are offered to anyone interested in the field. Students and interns who take advantage of such an experience will be able to apply new ideas to the world of environmental entrepreneurship.

EARTH University is responsible for creating a new generation of environmental entrepreneurs who are able to apply their new skills where needed. When students are able to implement their skills in their own communities, whether these communities are disadvantaged or not, prosperity is created. Through their students, EARTH University is contributing to the downsizing of poverty. This type of structure has been proven time and again as students’ innovative ideas and skills spread, decreasing poverty.  

– Trelawny Robinson
Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Mexico

Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Mexico
Educating girls is known to boost the economy and social development indicators. When a girl is more educated, she is more likely to have fewer children, work full-time, have an increased life expectancy and her children are less likely to die young. In developing countries like Mexico, issues like these are of the utmost importance for the development of the country. In the text below, top 10 facts about girls’ education in Mexico are presented.

Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Mexico

  1. Mexico mandates free primary and secondary education for children. After secondary school, students can choose between college and technical school. Women tend to outnumber men in technical schools.
  2. Mexican girls who live in rural areas tend to be less educated than their male counterparts. This is because of the prevalence of poverty, a marked lack of access to health care and social services and inadequate infrastructure provisions such as roads, water systems and telephone services. Parents might also be more reluctant to educate their daughters due to the cultural priority placed on getting married.
  3. Many girls in Mexico get married young, leading them to have many children instead of staying in school. The BBC reported that more than 320,000 girls between the ages of 12 and 17 were cohabiting with a man. More than 80 percent of these girls who were formally married left school. More than 90 percent of those who lived informally with the man dropped out of school.
  4. Although the literacy rate for women between the ages of 15 and 24 years old is 98.5 percent, women still overwhelmingly carry the burden of household chores and looking after children instead of pursuing higher education or advancing in their careers. Most girls drop out of school and become housewives instead of being incorporated into the workforce.
  5. Indigenous girls in Mexico face perhaps the most barriers to the attainment of even advanced primary level education. The poverty of many indigenous families conditions them to view their daughters, let alone their education, as a heavy economic burden. Mayan girls usually help with their parents’ income through agricultural work and household chores. Thus, they must drop out of school in the early stages.
  6. Although there are scholarships and programs to alleviate the cost of their daughters’ educations, many parents aren’t aware of them. There is a clear informational asymmetry regarding this question. Even if the parents did know of the existence of these programs and scholarships, they would not know how to apply for them.
  7. Indigenous girls also face a language barrier when learning the national curriculum. For example, girls from the Yucatan Maya community speak the Mayan language but are taught in Spanish. For this reason, they participate minimally in class and are often overlooked by teachers.
  8. Some Mayan girls report facing discrimination from their teachers and peers at school that obviously hinders their education. During interviews researchers conducted with some Mayan girls, they expressed feeling humiliated and discouraged when their classmates and even teachers called them derogatory names related to being darker-skinned or having trouble speaking Spanish.
  9. Rural Mexican girls have difficulty getting to school safely because of how remote their villages are. Unpredictable transportation often means walking long distances in desolate areas, leaving girls exposed to threats of physical or sexual violence on the roads.
  10. Mexico is a member of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI). This initiative is committed to narrowing the gender gap in education through the enhanced focus on marginalized and excluded groups, reduction, or in best case elimination, of school-related gender violence and improved learning outcomes for girls.

Mexico still has a long way to go before it eliminates the drastic gender gap in education, particularly for rural and indigenous women. However, with efforts such as the UNGEI, the situation appears hopeful and is changing for the better.

– Maneesha Khalae
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