When we think about going to school, doing homework and writing tests, these ideas can often times be met with deep sighs and eye rolls. Some of us may even try to fake an illness or skip school just to get out of having to be present in a place we seem to dread so much. But what if we were living in developing countries, places where many children do not go to school? Worse yet, what if we were young girls growing up in places like Pakistan, Cambodia, or Nepal, where we would not even have the right to receive an education? The truth is that sixty two million girls around the world are being held back from the classroom by factors such as poverty, forced child marriages, family care or domestic housework, and early pregnancies. It becomes a deadly cycle of young marriage, malnutrition during pregnancy, and unhealthy babies that have a high chance of dropping out of school, marrying young and continuing the cycle. It may not seem plausible to students like us in developed countries, but it is important to know the drastic advantages to keeping girls across the globes in the classroom. Girls that are able to receive an education will:
-be more likely to have a higher- paying job when she becomes an adult and be able to provide for her family
-have a lower chance of being married before the age of eighteen
-have healthier children (and will reduce the amount of maternal deaths by 66%)
If all women and girls were able to receive an education, the overall economy and health of the area would increase, as well. Staying in the classroom can increase her income by ten to twenty percent, as well as lower her risk of contracting HIV. Now, can you imagine all of the good that could do if every girl could do this!
An education is something that often gets take advantage of for students like us, but its value is priceless. If there’s any issue in the world today that is in urgent need of addressing, it is this one.
I first became aware of this issue in my social studies class last year, when we were studying the biggest issues facing developing countries. We had many class discussions about the topic, and it was truly intriguing to me that such a simple right that we often take for granted has become so overlooked in some countries! It was alarming to discover just how many girls are without an education, and to see all of the benefits a girl could have just by doing something as simple as being given the chance to receive and education. The vicious cycle that gets created over and over by girls getting married as young as nine years old has become uncontrollable in places such as Afghanistan, Haiti and Egypt, and to think that it could all be solved by granting a girl the chance to be in a classroom is a hard fact to take in when you are a student wo is as fortunate as I am. However, this was such a powerful concept to learn about in my socials class, and has become something that I am deeply passionate about today.
