Girls’ Education in the 21st Century Gender Equality, Empowerment, and Economic Growth

The book highlights the progress made in reducing the gender gap in schooling by reflecting on the current statistics and places emphasis on the challenges faced by females in attaining education. Research indicates the returns to female education are significantly higher than males and therefore there is a strong incentive to invest in female education. However, gender disparities continue to exist and are widest at the secondary level and these gender disparities hinder the ability of females to acquire education and realize its resultant benefits. Economic outcomes such as growth are not only dependent on completion rates but also on quality of education and developing countries face low economic growth partly due to low quality of education and inability to meet stated targets.

The study provides several recommendations for reducing gender inequality such as improving the economic returns to girl’s education by raising quality of education and promoting secondary education for girls by providing various fiscal incentives. Demand for girl’s education must be increased by providing conditional cash transfers and fee waivers and partnership of various stakeholders must be formed in order to design policies that address the issues of gender gap within education. Focus must primarily be placed on girls belonging to disadvantaged areas and increased research and analysis must be performed on gender segregated data.