What We Learn about Girls' Education from Interventions that Do Not Focus on Girls
Despite dramatic global gains in access to education, 130 million girls of school age remain out of school. Among those who do enter, too many do not gain the essential skills to succeed after they complete their schooling. Previous efforts to synt...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/243741563805734157/What-We-Learn-about-Girls-Education-from-Interventions-that-Do-Not-Focus-on-Girls http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32128 |
| Summary: | Despite dramatic global gains in access
to education, 130 million girls of school age remain out of
school. Among those who do enter, too many do not gain the
essential skills to succeed after they complete their
schooling. Previous efforts to synthesize evidence on how to
improve educational outcomes for girls have tended to focus
on interventions that are principally targeted to girls,
such as girls' latrines or girls' scholarships.
But if general, non-targeted interventions -- those that
benefit both girls and boys -- significantly improve
girls' education, then focusing only on girl-targeted
interventions may miss some of the best investments for
improving educational opportunities for girls in absolute
terms. This review brings together evidence from 270
educational interventions from 177 studies in 54 low- and
middle-income countries and identifies their impacts on
girls, regardless of whether the interventions specifically
target girls. The review finds that to improve access and
learning, general interventions deliver gains for girls that
are comparable to girl-targeted interventions. At the same
time, many more general interventions have been tested,
providing a broader menu of options for policy makers.
General interventions have similar impacts for girls as for
boys. Many of the most effective interventions to improve
access for girls are household-based (such as cash transfer
programs), and many of the most effective interventions to
improve learning for girls involve improving the pedagogy of
teachers. Girl-targeted interventions may make the most
sense when addressing constraints that are unique to girls. |
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