COUNT ME IN! World Bank Education Global Practice Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Young Women April 2024 Ensuring that all girls and young women receive a quality education is their human right, a global development imperative, and a strategic priority for the World Bank. Achieving gender equality is central to the World Bank Group twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a livable planet. As the largest financing COUNT ME IN! | Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Young Women development partner in education globally, the World Bank ensures that all of its education projects are gender-sensitive, and works to overcome barriers that are preventing girls and boys from equally benefiting from countries’ investments in education. Girls’ education goes beyond getting girls into school. It is also about ensuring that girls learn and feel safe while in school; have the opportunity to complete all levels of education, acquire the knowledge and skills to succeed in the labor market; gain socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to a changing world; make decisions about their own lives; and contribute to their communities and the world. 2 WHY IS IT CRITICAL TO INVEST IN GIRLS’ EDUCATION? Both individuals and countries benefit from girls’ education. Education is fundamental to improving girls’ and young women’s lives. Better- educated women tend to be more informed about nutrition and healthcare, have fewer children, marry at a later age, and their children are usually healthier, should they choose to become mothers. They are more likely to participate in the formal labor market and earn higher incomes. Furthermore, schools empower all students, serving as incubators where students can learn about their own potential and rights in the world around them. All these factors combined can help lift households, communities, and countries out of poverty. The costs of not investing in girls’ education are steep: a World Bank study estimates that limited educational opportunities for girls cost countries between US$15 trillion1 and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings. PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES The World Bank is strongly committed to addressing the barriers girls face in trying to obtain an education. More than 150 million girls and young women worldwide are benefiting from World Bank education projects and initiatives. The World Bank’s support for girls’ education has grown significantly in recent years. Our work includes lending operations and grants, data collection and analytical work, as well as strategic partnerships with organizations and partners worldwide. The World Bank supports girls’ and young women’s education through the Education Global Practice and through projects that leverage education, health, social protection, water, and infrastructure interventions, among others. Over the past few decades, there has been steady and significant improvement in education outcomes, including increasing access and improving learning, for girls and young women globally. In fact, over two-thirds of all countries have reached gender parity in primary school enrollment. Despite these improvements, progress is still lagging on some key indicators for girls’ education, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and in contexts affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV).2 1 2 All dollars are in US$ unless otherwise indicated. Gender and Education. UNICEF. 2022. 3 CHALLENGES IN GIRLS’ EDUCATION: THE NUMBERS TELL THE STORY 122 million While there are similar rates for primary school GIRLS OUT OF SCHOOL WORLDWIDE completion globally (92% male, 90% female), lower secondary school completion for both 34 million 87 million males and females is much lower in low-income countries, with the discrepancy between girls of primary-school age secondary-school age and boys even sharper: In South Asia, approximately 41 million primary and secondary school-age girls are out of school. 38% 43% In Sub-Saharan Africa, that number is 51 million. FEMALE MALE Girls in FCV contexts: It has been estimated that two-thirds of the world’s 2.5 times 90% illiterate population are women. more likely to be more likely to be out of school out of secondary school than girls in non-FCV than girls in non-FCV The literacy rate 84% 90% settings settings (above 15 years old) FEMALE MALE There is a BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS ARE FACING A LEARNING large gender gap CRISIS. Learning Poverty (LP) measures the share of in labor force participation that is especially stark children who are not able to read and understand a in South Asia, which has one of the lowest female simple text by age 10. The average of LP in low- and labor force participation rates at 26.3%. middle-income countries is females 50% males 56% Female students represent only 35% of all students enrolled in The gap virtually disappears in low-income countries, science, technology, engineering and mathematics where LP averages a dismally high 93% for both (STEM)-related fields of study at higher education boys and girls. level globally The World Bank’s approach to supporting girls’ education recognizes that multiple factors lead to low enrollment rates, low educational attainment, and low levels of learning. Some of these constraints affect boys and girls alike, while others affect one gender more than the other. Constraints include: COUNT ME IN! | Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Young Women Barriers to Getting and A Lack of Safe & Low Quality Limited Further Keeping Girls in School Inclusive Schools of Education Education and for Girls for Girls and Boys Employment Financial barriers Prospects for Lack of school Low quality Young Women Distance and lack of infrastructure and and relevance of safety to and from materials for education services Lack of further school girl-specific needs education prospects Lack of Lack of information Unsafe schools, gender-sensitive Limited fields of study about returns to girls’ gender-based violence teaching and material education Limited employment (GBV) including sexual harassment (SH) and prospects Social and cultural perceptions/norms sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) 4 SPOTLIGHT ON Creating Safe Schools for Girls The Resilient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Learning Project is a $125 million project, which aims to improve teaching practices, teachers’ digital readiness, and schools’ learning environments in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The Project will support system-wide activities to tackle the recovery of the learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, create more conducive learning environments, and narrow the digital divide to foster inclusion. The Project will address gender-based violence in schools through school violence prevention programs/trainings. Activities related to this include the design and implementation of school-related gender-based violence prevention plans for each school, including during the travel to and from school. This includes appointing female guidance counselors, running awareness campaigns, creating support systems for survivors, establishing teacher codes of conducts, and signing school pledges. Read More The $370 million Niger Learning Improvement for Results in Education Project has been designed to support transformative interventions for girls in Niger, including refugees. The project will create safe spaces for girls by providing scholarships, mentorship programs, life skills and reproductive health skills training, improve digital literacy and engage girls in arts, culture and sports activities. The project expects 4,500 girls would benefit from the safe learning spaces initiative, including boarding schools, and over 56,000 out-of-school adolescent girls would benefit from the project overall, supporting their learning. Read More 5 AN OVERVIEW OF SUPPORT TO GIRLS’ EDUCATION IN WORLD BANK EDUCATION OPERATIONS There are 162 active projects across 88 countries in the Education Global Practice portfolio (as of February 2024). The total portfolio size is $26 billion, and the total approximate spending on girls in these projects is $12.47 billion—almost half of the total expenditure. As our largest portfolios are in Africa and South Asia, the majority of this spending on girls’ education is in the Africa and South Asia Regions. (Figure 1). Figure 1: Approximate Spending on Girls Education per Region, $ Billion* South Asia Africa $2.83B $6.20B Middle East and North Africa $1.37B Latin America and the Caribbean $1.27B East Asia and the Pacific Europe and Central Asia $0.46B $0.85B *Figures have been rounded Supporting Girls in FCV Contexts Approximately $6.91 billion of the $26 billion Education GP portfolio is in countries SPOTLIGHT ON affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). An estimated $3.46 billion goes to girls in FCV countries. For example, support for Displaced Rohingya People (DRP) was fostered in Bangladesh through the Second Reaching Out of School Children (ROSC). The ROSC included: the establishment of 1,000 new and makeshift learning centers to conduct (a)  COUNT ME IN! | Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Young Women informal learning activities in DRP camps; supporting approximately 500 already-established learning centers through (b)  funding from other sources; recruiting and training 2,000 teachers and learning instructors (at least 50 (c)  percent female) for the DRP learning centers; and Photo: GPE/Stephan Bachenheimer deploying a proportionate number of properly trained female teachers to (d)  address parents’ safety concerns while ensuring retention of female learners. Consequently, about 112,000 children and adolescents were enrolled in 1,331 (against a target of 1,500) learning centers. More than 48 percent of the enrolled students were girls with close to 100 percent retention rate in the first year. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the project supported the government’s pandemic response: 93,229 children (50 percent girls) received packages supporting distance learning with caregiver support, and hygiene and sanitation supplies to help protect them from COVID-19. A total of 1,196 new teachers were recruited from the local community (86 percent female) and a total of 3,000 teachers were trained on the use of teachers’ guides, student workbooks and supplementary subject learning materials to support education activities during the pandemic. 6 Read More Girls’ Education & Climate Change Education is critical for achieving effective, sustained climate action. At SPOTLIGHT the same time, the effects of climate change are adversely impacting ON education outcomes. As the largest financier of education and the largest multilateral funder of climate action in the developing world, the World Bank seeks to harness the power of education for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The effects of climate change run the risk of worsening inequalities that girls and young women already face. There are estimates that by 2025, climate change could prevent 12.5 million girls from completing their education. Engaging girls and young women is also key to sustainable climate action. Girls’ and young women’s education and empowerment, in conjunction with interventions like family planning, reproductive and sexual health and reduced child marriage, can aid the transition to low-carbon economies, help improve resource use, and assist in lowering environmental damage and land fragmentation, as well as increase resilience of economies. The World Bank seeks to harness the power of education for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and works on addressing climate change in five key areas through the Education Global Practice: 1 Mainstreaming climate education for mindset and behavior change, 2 Fostering green skills for a transition to a more sustainable future, 3 Supporting research and innovation on climate change topics, 4 Investing in ‘greening’ education infrastructure, and 5 Strengthening community resilience to climate’s impacts on education. For example, our project in Nigeria, Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), is supporting school-based life skills training for girls that will cover issues on climate change. This includes raising awareness and teaching adaptation approaches and skills to respond to climate change. The project also encourages social and behavioral change by supporting student-led community activities to increase climate change awareness. Read More Photo: Arne Hoel / World Bank 7 SPOTLIGHT ON Investing in Early Childhood Education In Morocco, access to pre-primary education is particularly limited for girls in rural areas. The Improving Early Childhood Development Outcomes in Rural Morocco project will address the gender gap. The $450 million loan includes support to enhanced early childhood development (ECD) outcomes for girls through a Behavior Change Campaign for improved ECD practices. This includes parental education sessions focused on positive parenting and promotion of girls’ enrollment and attendance of preschool. This will lead to a significant expansion of the supply of quality early childhood education services in rural areas, and allow for the enrollment of 100,000 additional rural children. It will also contribute to increase equitable access to quality pre-primary education, especially for girls. This COUNT ME IN! | Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Young Women investment is expected to bring about positive benefits in terms of women’s labor force participation overall, by reducing the time women allocate to caregiving, and by creating job opportunities for women as preschool educators. Read More Empowering Girls and Young Women The Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project in Angola is a $250 million project, which includes improved access to sexual and reproductive health services, while strengthening the information and knowledge of girls, boys, parents, and community leaders to boost uptake of these services. For out-of-school youth, the project scales up second-chance education, incorporating life skills and adolescent health information. It introduces a scholarship program reaching 900,000 youth entering secondary school, with a registration bonus for girls. In addition, support will be provided to improve teaching and learning outcomes, and 3,000 new classrooms will be built. Read More 8 LIFECYCLE APPROACH: SUPPORT FROM BIRTH TO ADULTHOOD The World Bank’s work on girls’ education takes a holistic approach—a lifecycle approach. Our project interventions focus on some of the biggest barriers to girls’ education and are designed based on knowledge and evidence of successful interventions, and what works in local contexts. Many of our projects aim to address social and gender norm-related challenges that hinder gender equality. LIFECYCLE APPROACH: Education Interventions that Support Girls and Young Women from Birth to Adulthood Lifecycle Early Childhood Childhood Adolescence Young Adult Adult LIFECYCLE APPROACH: Education Interventions that Support Girls and Young Women from Birth to Adulthood Lifecycle Education Level Early Childhood Primary Lower Upper Technical and Higher Education Skills Lifelong Learning Early Childhood Childhood Adolescence Young Adult Adult Education (ECE) Secondary Secondary Vocational and Training Programs Education and Training (TVET) Education Level Early Childhood Primary Lower Upper Technical and Higher Education Skills Lifelong Learning Education (ECE) Secondary Secondary Vocational and Training Programs Read more in our background policy World and note for theEducation Bank-wide Gender Strategy 2024-30, Achieving Gender Equality in Education: Examining Progress and Constraints Training (TVET) Read More Removing barriers to schooling: 1 through scholarships, providing transport to and Our approach is guided by evidence on what works for from girls’school, and community education advocacy and targets multiplecampaigns areas including: Promoting safe and inclusive schools: Removing barriers to schooling: 2 1 by making schools safe, working to eliminate school-based gender-based violence, and supporting through scholarships, providing transport to and from school, and community advocacy campaigns menstrual health and hygiene for adolescent girls Promoting safe Improving the and inclusive quality schools: of education: 3 2 by making schools safe, working improving learning for both boys and girls, school-based to eliminate gender-based teaching violence,and promoting gender-sensitive andcurricula, supporting menstrual health and hygiene for adolescent girls and introducing extracurricular activities like girls’ clubs Developing skills and empowering girls for life and labor market success: Improving the quality of education: through supporting young women through the schools-to-jobs transition, promoting skills 3 4 by improving learning for both boys and girls, promoting gender-sensitive teaching and curricula, development programs for young women, and programs to encourage more women in science, and introducing extracurricular activities like girls’ clubs technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields Developing skills and empowering girls for life and labor market success: through supporting young women through the schools-to-jobs transition, promoting skills 4 development programs for young women, and programs to encourage more women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields 9 Changing social Norms for Gender Equality — SPOTLIGHT realizing the Promise of Education ON Research has shown that social norms are one of the main determinants of unequal gender outcomes. In education, for example these informal rules about acceptable or appropriate behavior can affect a range of areas including girls’ school attendance, safety, classroom performance, fields of study, and eventual labor market participation. Education further has the exceptional power to transform norms and promote gender equality far beyond school. The World Bank is increasingly focused on ensuring that its programs are aware of and address norms that may keep girls and boys from achieving a quality education and succeeding in later life. Interventions can address these from many angles, such as shifting incentives through cash transfers to delay early marriage and keep girls in school, closing the gender gap for school principals, and sharing information to inform female university students’ labor force participation. World Bank supported projects further recognize the transformative potential of education on norms, for example engaging fathers in ECD parenting programs, empowering adolescent girls, and shifting norms around and preventing GBV. Read More Tackling Social Norms to Improve Learning Outcomes in Chad In Chad, many barriers prevent girls from obtaining an education. For almost half of girls, social norms and domestic chores are the main reasons for dropping out. Girls in school do not have access to many female teachers, despite evidence of having a female teacher’s positive associations with “higher test scores, lower dropout rates and higher aspirations for girls, as well as a lower likelihood of girls being subject to violence.” And girls perform worse than boys on mathematics and language by the end of primary. The Improving Learning Outcomes Project in Chad aims to change this, by focusing on improving girls’ education and learning in the classroom, including through tackling social norms that hinder girls’ education. COUNT ME IN! | Improving Education Outcomes for Girls and Young Women The $150 million grant will include providing reading materials that are sensitive to gender-representation (including positive role models for girls in school and avoiding gender biases). The project will also conduct community awareness campaigns to combat gender stereotypes, and emphasize the importance of girls’ schooling, in a drive to increase girls’ attendance and enrollment at school. Further seeking to improve the learning and school environments for girls, the project will create gender-separate toilets and WASH facilities in almost 500 schools. In addition, the project will incentivize the participation of women in the teaching force through the integration of female community teachers into the civil service, as it increases girls’ school attendance. Read More 10 PARTNERSHIPS EQUAL GREATER IMPACT Partnerships both within and outside of the World Bank are critical to the Education Global Practice’s (GP) work on girls’ education. The Education GP works with other global practices in the Bank to improve girls’ education—for example, collaborating with the Water GP for access to sanitation and hygiene in schools, with Social Protection and Jobs GP for challenges related to labor market transition, or Energy GP to improve school safety. The Education GP is also: o collaborating with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office FCDO (UK) about targets and high-level engagement with G7 donors, to support aid and financial commitment for girls’ education; o signatory to the Freetown Manifesto, led by the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), to build momentum for gender equality in and through education; o collaborating with UNICEF, UNESCO, GPE, and other partners on furthering advocacy on girls’ education; o working closely with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) as the implementing agency for 65 percent or $5.5 billion of the total GPE grants since inception, that also support girls’ education. SPOTLIGHT Educational Quality and Support for Girls ON In Haiti, the Providing an Education of Quality in Haiti project has promoted awareness of gender-based violence (GBV) and harmful stereotypes toward girls, and creation of safer spaces for girls to learn life skills and improve safety and security. Achievements include gender clubs implemented in 92 schools, gender-sensitive rehabilitation of bathroom facilities, and in-service training of school directors and teachers. These interventions lower the likelihood that girls miss school and increase their chance to successfully transition to secondary education. These efforts also built on the earlier Providing an Education for All Haiti (EFA) Phase II project, which benefited thousands of girls and boys to attend school through its Tuition Waiver Program. Read More Supporting Girls in STEM The Romania Secondary Education Project is one of the largest projects in Europe and Central Asia (EUR 200 million). The project increased students’ motivation and capacity for transition and retention in higher education by supporting at-risk high school and university students. Fifty-one percent of 632,000 female high school and university students are benefiting from the program. Moreover, 61 percent of high school girls attended summer bridge programs for academic support during school breaks. The same percentages apply to girls enrolled in STEM subjects either in high schools or universities, which helped Romania be on top of EU countries with 37 percent of females in total STEM students in 2022. Girls had the chance to interact with teachers, researchers, and company representatives to learn about real and virtual experiments, robotics, 3D modeling, or research and development. They also benefited from coaching, career guidance, and socio- emotional skills development. Read More 11 Photo credits for cover and back cover: Gabriela-Leite Soares / World Bank Dominic Chavez / World Bank For more information about the World Bank’s work in Education, please visit: www.worldbank.org/education Follow the World Bank on Twitter: @WBG_Education