Getting girls into school: UNICEF focuses on girls as they are disadvantaged when it comes to having an education.

• Most girls who are prevented from going to school live in Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific.
• There are 781 million illiterate adults, two thirds of them women, worldwide.*
• Currently it is estimated that there are 93 million children out of school. The majority of these are girls and 80% of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Girls are half the population so it is very important for a country that they have the chance to get an education and help improve their communities.

*Taken from the International UNICEF website

Educating girls has great benefits for society. Some reasons include:

• An educated girl tends to marry later.  When girls marry, sometimes at as young as 9 or 10, they are expected to stop going to school.  If she marries when she is older she can continue learning for a brighter future, and will have children when she is older and there is less chance of harm to her body.
• An educated girl is likely to have fewer children. This means she has more money to feed, clothe and look after the children she does have. 
• Educated girls tend to have healthier children.  Educated mothers are more likely to take their babies for check-ups, give them a healthy diet and immunise them against killer diseases, like polio and measles.
• An educated girl is more likely to get a good job because she has better skills and this means she is better able to care for her family.
• Education is an excellent way to protect girls against HIV/AIDS.  A higher number of girls and women are infected with HIV/AIDS than men.  In sub-Saharan Africa, girls are twice as likely to become infected as boys because they are less likely to be educated about how it is spread, or the importance of learning to say no when they are forced into doing something they don’t want to.
• An educated girl is more confident and able to look after herself.  She will be able to make better decisions, including standing up for herself and having the courage to say no to what she does not want. 
• An educated girl is more likely to send her children to school.  This might be because she can afford to due to a better job or because she appreciated the opportunity to be able to go to school herself so she wants her children to also benefit from the experience.

What stops girls from going to school?

The reason for a lot of girls not going to school is prejudice – which means educating girls is seen as being of a lesser value - because they are girls.  Some of the reasons for this are:

Poverty
When a family is poor and cannot pay fees to send all of their children to school, usually it is sons who are chosen instead of daughters. This is because girls are seen to be homemakers.

In Kibera, the biggest slum in Nairobi, many parents cannot enrol their children into school because they simply don’t have enough money.  The average pay is $27 a month – which must cover rent, food, water and health care.  Silvia’s father could not raise $133 to enrol her in school, let alone the $27 for a school uniform.  When she asked to go to school, her parents would tell her, “school is for the rich and not for poor people like us”.

Tradition
Women are traditionally expected to stay at home so girls have home duties that boys don't have.  Often they do these before they go to school, which makes them late, tired and unable to concentrate. Lots of girls cannot cope and so they drop out of school.

Some of their duties are fetching water, caring for sick relatives or younger brothers and sisters and cooking and cleaning.

Safety
Many parents are scared that it isn’t safe to send their daughters to school.  The reasons for this are

• Sometimes schools are far away and it is too dangerous for girls travel there alone.  In Bhutan, some children have to walk for several hours, sometimes in the rain or snow, or through rough forest paths infested with leeches, just to get to school.
• Girls are more likely to be victims of violence at schools, or harassed by boys, sometimes even by male teachers.
• There may not be any toilets or hand basins at or near the school.  This affects girls because they need privacy and especially teenage girls for reasons of hygiene.
• There aren’t enough female teachers so girls do not have many role models at school.  This might mean they see school as a place for boys and don’t feel confident there.

Birth registration
About 50 million children around the world do not have a birth certificate when they are born.  This means they don’t have any documents to register at a school or for exams.

What does UNICEF do for girls’ education?

UNICEF’s aim is to get more girls into school because girls are a vulnerable group.   UNICEF works to make sure that girls stay in school, and are taught the basic skills they need to live better lives, from learning numbers to learning how to protect themselves against HIV and AIDS.

UNICEF works with governments to think up ways to increase the number of girls in school.  UNICEF also

• Reaches out to vulnerable and at-risk girls (orphans, refugees, domestic servants) and gets them into school.
• UNICEF educates people to see school as a place equally for girls and boys.
• UNICEF helps with transportation to school, building toilets at schools and making schools a safer place for girls.
• UNICEF supplies food, shelter, immunisation and more in emergencies like war and natural disasters but we also help children to get an education in a safe and stable environment.

Around the world there are many girls under 15 who are domestic servants or maids. UNICEF helps to promote schooling for these girls for a few hours a day, so they can earn a living as well as learn. This also helps to raise awareness of child labour and the harsh lives these young girls live.


Hayley Westenra and Bikes for Ghana -UNICEF New Zealand helps girls to get to school in safety!

UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassador, singer Hayley Westenra, went to Ghana in Africa in 2005, and re-visited in 2008, to spread the message of how important it is for girls to go to school. In Ghana, 22% of girls did not go to primary school and 40% did not attend junior school.

Reasons why fewer girls went to school were the same as for girls in other countries. Many girls have to walk as far as 5km to get to school in all kinds of weather.

Hayley announced, "One particular project I'm supporting at the moment is the raising of funds for the purchase of bikes for girls in Ghana, so that they are able to attend school. They have to walk several kilometres to school everyday (if they indeed get there) which means that by the time they have done all the home chores it is almost too late to head off on the long journey."

UNICEF decided to raise money to give girls bikes because it makes the long journey to school safer for girls as they are less likely to be in danger from attacks along the way and means that they can travel long distances to get to school.

Hayley returned to Ghana in September 2008 and had the opportunity to meet with some of the roughly 6,000 girls from deprived rural communities who have benefitted from the Bikes for Ghana programme since her visit in 2005.

UNICEF has also worked with the Government of Ghana to abolish school fees, making education accessible for all children.

In a further initiative in the Afram Plains District, UNICEF provided training for 141 kindergarten teachers showing them how to prepare lesson plans, work with a new national curriculum, and provided them with teaching materials. More than 6,000 children are benefitting from this programme.

Thanks to these and other initiatives, the enrolment rate in primary schools is now 98% for males and 97% for females.

You and  your school can fundraise and buy bikes for girls.  It's as simple as purchasing an inspired gift of a bike from our website check it out here.