Sunday, March 8, 2009

Women & Education

From the Vancouver Sun:
"Sunday being the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, permit a modest proposal for launching its second century.

Instead of simply shovelling bailout money into wastrel corporations ($8 trillion worldwide and counting, according to Jeffrey Garten writing in Newsweek), let's hold back a fraction and invest it in something that will generate a real and rapid return.

Let's fund a global crash program for educating girls and women in the developing world.

Studies by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations like Oxfam and Plan International all concur that getting women and girls a basic education is one of the best investments available. The financial returns are immediate, measurable and large.

Furthermore, educating women stabilizes population growth and improves health and economic well-being for individuals and entire societies.

Yet another study found that when women have a chance for even a few years of formal schooling, they ensure their own children go to school, thus breaking a pernicious cycle of ignorance and poverty."


From Modern Ghana:
"Ms. Agartha Osei, Nkoranza District Girls Education Officer, has commended the MP for Nkoranza South, Mr. Kwame Amporfo-Twumasi, for promoting education in the district, more especially girls' education.

Ms. Osei told the Ghana News Agency at Nkoranza that but for the efforts of Mr. Amporfo-Twumasi, 13 girls could not have continued their education to the senior high school level.

He expressed regret about how parental neglect had led some girls to drop out of school at the junior high level due to pregnancy.

Ms. Osei advised parents to minimize their huge expenses on funerals, clothing, alcoholism and other unproductive social activities and invest their resources in the education of their children.

She appealed to religious leaders to use the pulpit to educate their members to enrol their daughters in schools as the low level of female education was a big challenge in the district.

She appealed to teachers as well as non-governmental organisations to support and encourage girls to sustain their interest in education."

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