Increased enrollment for Somali Girls

Eric Cressey/3-7-08/3:30pm / Education

A survey published by the UN claims that enrollment in school by girls in Somalia has increased by 3x in the last decade. Although this seems like good news, more can be done. Currently only 1 in 4 girls attend primary school. Currently only 121,000 women attend school there and UNICEF's goal is to have that number increase by 50,000 by 2009. Drastic steps must be taken in order to achieve the millennium goals of gender parity and of 100% girl enrollment in primary school. Education is critical in the fight against poverty, so getting the amount of girls enrolled is vitally important to improving the conditions in Somalia. One way that the UN is helping to address the problem of low female enrollment is to combat factors that contribute to this, like poor sanitation.

I have been focusing primarily on the efforts of the international community to improve education in Africa, and I found this article to be perfect for what I am trying to learn about. Whereas previous articles focused on education in general, I like that this article honed in on improving education for girls and trying to get the gender gap closed in Africa. Education is crucially important, like the article mentions, as a way of combating other serious social problems.