Around one million of the world's poorest girls will be helped into education under a government project backed by the private sector, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced.
Businesses and charities are being asked to come up with radical new ways of getting girls to school and will only receive continued waves of funding if they can prove their schemes are a success.
Around £355 million from the existing aid budget will be diverted into a new fund that will target some of the most deprived areas of Africa and Asia, including parts of Bangladesh, South Sudan and Nigeria.
The Girls Education Challenge, which straddles non-governmental organisations (NGOs), charities and the private sector, will help 650,000 girls with a full six years of primary education or up to one million girls with a junior secondary education for three years.
Mr Clegg said: "Women and girls continue to bear the brunt of poverty. Investing in them early on and giving them an education not only radically alters their lives but has a massive knock-on effect benefiting their families and communities. Girls who have been to school are likely to do significantly better financially, socially and be far healthier.
"The action we are taking is ambitious and something of which Britain should be enormously proud. It will help to lift hundreds of thousands of girls out of poverty so that they can fulfil their potential."
Organisations will have to demonstrate "measurable improvements" in the quality of education and increased numbers of girls going to school, particularly the most marginalised groups of children.
Department for International Development officials said girls who attended school were more likely to marry later, have fewer children, get immunisation for themselves and their babies, avoid HIV and find employment.
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell will give more details about the project at the UN General Assembly this week.
He said: "Educating girls tackles the root causes of poverty. Research shows that providing girls with an extra year of schooling can increase their wages by up to 20 per cent, while also lowering birth rates, which can have a profound economic impact."
Copyright © 2011 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment