Keeping Girls in Education

According to UNESCO, Institute for Statistics, (US 2018), the figures show that in Sub-Saharan Africa, 33.3 million girls of primary and lower secondary school age are out of school, rising to 52.2 million when taking into account girls of upper secondary level.

Aa part of our education programme N4BW works with teachers and school children alike exploring the issues around keeping girls in education.

One of the winning entries in a poetry competition at Luntha School, highlights the issue.

Freedom of Education

Where is our freedom? I mean our delicious and attractive freedom.

Freedom of education.

The freedom that is currently given to boys only.

Pushing us into early marriages, forcing us to face calamities.

Where is our freedom kept? Freedom of relaxing after school.

Hours of cooking and household chores while boys are busy studying.

By the way what does gender mean?

Frankly you mistreat us

Let us learn as well, Our bright future, let us make.

Let us prevent domestic violence; early pregnancy we also should prevent

Reliable citizens we should become

After having adequate education

Where is our freedom?

I admire when I see Jane, wearing her nurse uniform.

So beautiful, she looks

Because of her advanced education, today she is in a better position

Ladies and gentlemen, lets educate both boys and girls

As this act makes young girls face consequences

Girls are readers as good as boys

Let us develop our Malawi by educating al!!

by Joyce Samana

CAMFED, (Campaign for Female Education), one of the leading organisations supporting girls in school across the African continent, states that through a completed education a girl will

• Earn up to 25% more per year of secondary school education
• Reinvest 90% of her earnings into her family
• Be 3 times less likely to become HIV positive
• Marry later and have a smaller, healthier family
• Invest in her children’s education and support their studies
• Resist gender-based violence and discrimination, and change her community from within