With 2.4 million Afghan girls enrolled in school, compared to just 5,000 in 2001, progress in girls’ education is one of the rare Afghan success stories of the last nine years.
Watch CARE’s community-based education program on 6.30 with George Negus:
‘When educated, women are more likely to have healthy babies, to send their children to school and the health of their entire family improves. Donors and the Government of Afghanistan must give priority to keeping girls in school; the future of Afghanistan depends on it,’ says CARE Australia CEO Dr Julia Newton Howes.
Girls in secondary and higher level education face the greatest challenges. While 1.9 million Afghan girls are enrolled in primary school, this drops to just over 400,000 girls in secondary school and just over 120,000 in high school. At age 18, just 18 per cent of girls are still in school compared to 42 per cent for boys.
Afghanistan suffers from one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, yet studies estimate that infant mortality drops by 5 to 10 per cent for every extra year that girls stay in school.
While the large increase in girls enrolled in school is encouraging, Afghan girls still face many barriers to receiving an education. Donate to CARE today to help keep girls in school and improve the quality of the education they receive.