Education levels vary around the world and heavily depend on both the wealth of a country as well as its cultures and traditions. Some cultures place a higher emphasis on the education of their children while others feel as though children should stay and work and help the family. However, even in the cultures that value education, it is frequently seen that the education of women and girls takes a much lower precedence than the education of men and boys. While this isn’t true of all societies and all countries, there is no denying the fact that women and young girls have a much harder time finding education in many parts of the world.
Why is this important? Well aside from the obvious fact that everyone deserves education, multiple sources have claimed multiple times that the education of women should be seen as much more important than it currently is. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agrees that the educating of women isn’t only good for them, but for their countries as well. Human intelligence is split 50/50; women are just as smart as men (regardless of what tradition might say) and by keeping women uneducated, you’re literally halving the intellectual resources of your country. It’s time for these misguided and antiquated ideas of the past to disappear once and for all!
It seems as though the White House is in strong agreement with these sentiments. The Obama administration has announced a new world-wide education initiative called “Let Girls Learn” that focuses on increasing educational access to women and young girls all across the world. With over 60 million girls, of which half are still adolescents, unable to access education, the initiative has its work cut out for it. Michelle Obama is visiting Japan and Cambodia to begin promoting the plan and that’s just the beginning. The First Lady’s office will work in coordination with the Peace Corps to focus on community-lead and supported plans that will increase the number of girls and women in school as well as helping to keep them in school. While the US does much to support female education programs abroad, this is the first time that all the efforts are going to be coordinated under a single strategy. This program is now going to be a linchpin of foreign policy and President Obama has said that if any country wants to partner with the US, they need to work on increasing the number of girls in school.
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