Failure of girls’ education could cost the world $30 trillion per year, says World Bank

Nearly 132 million girls aged 6 to 17 are not educated. The failure to allow girls to attend school could cost the world up to $30 trillion a year in lost earnings and productivity, the World Bank said.

According to the World Bank, women who have finished secondary education are more likely to work and earn than those do not attend school. Less than two-thirds of girls without education in low-income countries finish primary school. Only a third of these girls complete lower secondary school.

However if every girl can finish 12 years of quality education, women’s lifetime earnings could be double, the World Bank said.

Numerous benefits accrue from completion of girls’ secondary school education. The positive impacts can be reduced child marriage, lower fertility rates in nations with high population growth, and decreased child mortality and malnutrition, the World Bank commented.

Kristina Georgieva, World Bank Chief executive said:

“We cannot keep letting gender inequality get in the way of global progress.”

Compared to completion of primary education, cultivating girls at secondary school level could have more beneficial results, commented Quentin Wodon, World Bank lead economist and main report author.

Wodon said:

“While we do need to insure that of course all girls complete primary school, but that is not enough.”

Women who have finished secondary education are less likely to suffer violence in their families. These women’s children are also at less risk to have malnutrition and increase more chances to be educated.

Malala Yousafzai, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said:

“When 130 million girls are unable to become engineers or journalists or CEOs because education is out of their reach, our world misses out on trillions of dollars.”

Yousafzai is an education activist who was shot in the head at the age of 15 by a Taliban gunman in 2012 and has become the youngest Nobel Prize winner. She continued: