Credit: IPS TerraViva

By Selina Rust

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 11 (IPS/TerraViva)- Whenever Yusriya saw her neighbours leaving for school, she would cry.

“I wanted to read signs, understand ads, read the news and even write my name,” she explained.

The 13-year-old girl lives in Abu Teeg, an Egyptian city that hasn’t changed much over the years: the vast majority of women are uneducated, focus on the needs of their families, and even require their husband’s permission to leave the house.

But when a single classroom opened in her village, the inquisitive teen had the chance to live one of her greatest dreams: getting an education.

Her story was told in the film, “Rising Voices- Raising Yusriya”, presented by the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) and UNICEF on the occasion of the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

“We need empirical and evidence-based videos like that,” said Changu Mannathoko, UNICEF Senior Education Advisor. “That way policy makers can see the reality.”

According to Mannathoko, early marriage, poverty, labour, social norms and cultural practices still restrain girls from getting a quality education in higher school levels.

UNICEF says that more than half of the estimated 101 million children not attending school are girls.

However, Elizabeth Fordham, who is the UNESCO Education Programme Adviser, told TerraViva that there has been a tremendous change in terms of primary school enrolment for girls during the last 10 years.

“There are more girls in school then ever before. But there are still areas were we are making slow progress at the secondary and higher levels,” she said.

Although gender equality at the primary school level has been largely achieved, barriers to girls’ education persist: Poverty, the costs of education, and long distances to school are key factors.

In some countries, the gaps between boys and girls are still widening, Fordham said. In Sub-Saharan Africa and in South and West Asia, exclusion rates even have increased for girls.

In these areas, the gender parity rate in terms of women’s literacy has remained the same over the past 15 years.

According to Fordham, it is a matter of government commitment to work against cultural and religious attitudes that girls don’t need to be educated.

“The rewards of investing in girl’s education are tremendous,” she told TerraViva. “If you educate a girl, you are educating a whole family, a community, an area.”

The community schools shown in the video “Rising voices, raising Yusriya” have emerged as a strong example of child-centreed schools that provide access and quality education to children from rural areas.

Through community mobilisation and support from the ministry and UNICEF, girls in Abu Teeg have the chance to go to a community school for the very first time.

Like 13-year-old Yusriya, many are teaching their families new words they learned in school.

In terms of her behaviour, ideas and vocabulary, Yusriya’s mother can already see a huge difference between her and her uneducated sisters.

Due to the distance, her older sisters were not allowed to attend school. Their father didn’t see the point in investing in his daughters’ education.

For Yusriya, on the other hand, the advantages of going to school are obvious: “Education really enlightened my life,” she said. “In a few years I am able to go to the university. I really want to be a doctor!”