Zimbabwe and UN launch national strategy to boost girls’ education

In a bid to reduce the often wide gender disparities in Zimbabwe’s school enrolment rates, the United Nations has joined forces with the Government and civil society groups to establish a national strategic plan that will try to improve girls’ education and keep them in classes.

Launched yesterday in the capital, Harare, the strategic plan – the first of its kind in Zimbabwe – details how to keep girls, orphans and other vulnerable children in school even when they or their families face economic hardships or challenges such as HIV/AIDS.

Girls are usually the first to drop out of classes in Zimbabwe when there is a social or economic crisis, and the problem is especially acute in secondary schools.

Cecilia Baldeh, the head of education in Zimbabwe for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said there are significant benefits for households and nations – not to mention the girls themselves – when girls are able to stay in school.

“Educated girls can protect themselves from HIV and AIDS, they can contribute to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates, and they can foster economic growth,” she said. “As the World Bank has noted, educating girls yields a higher rate of return than almost any other investment available in the developing world.”

Although Zimbabwe has gender parity in primary school enrolment rates and only a 2 per cent gap at the secondary level, the disparity is much wider within some districts. In Umguza district, for example, there is a 25 per cent difference between the drop out rates of boys and girls at secondary schools.

The strategic plan has been designed to operate until 2010 and follows two years in which the UN has invested $2 million supporting girls’ education in Zimbabwe, from providing scholarships to erecting new classrooms to setting up “girl empowerment clubs” across the country.