Quote

At any rate, girls are differently situated. Having no need of deep scientific knowledge, their education is confined more to the ordinary things of the world, the study of the fine arts, and of the manners and dispositions of people.

Everything has to do with education: If you educate the girls, you educate the family, the community, and society, in general.

There is a reason you keep hearing about the power of educating girls in the developing world. It's a reason so simple that you will probably view it with suspicion, as I once did. It's this: educating girls works. Really works.

The prevailing view was that girls were outside of school because of the resistance of families to their education. But when I visited a local village, what everyone told me - the chiefs, the parents, the children - was that girls weren't in school because it was the boys that had a better chance of getting paid work in the future.

Girls are the future mothers of our society, and it is important that we focus on their well-being.

One of the things we have to remember about the poorest countries in the world is that parents, extremely poor parents, are making the choice of whether to send their girls to school. And they are struggling with lack of water, lack of firewood, and lack of care for their youngest children. And those burdens fall on the girls.

When girls are educated, you get effects that cascade throughout society.

Education, doing homework, is the way to lift up girls. Around the world, where girls are educated, the economy and the standard of living rise.

It isn't often that the logic behind a policy is so clear. But when it comes to the value of educating girls, the evidence speaks for itself.