A Fair Chance

Getting girls into school means the difference between life and death for millions. Babies born to mothers without formal education are at least twice as likely to suffer from malnutrition, or die before the age of five, than those babies born to mothers who completed primary school.

Yet 65 million girls being denied their right to education. That’s as many as all of the school-age girls in North America and Europe. And far too little is being done about it. At the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, world leaders agreed to get as many girls as boys into primary and secondary classrooms by 2005. Governments also promised to ensure that by 2015, all girls and boys complete primary education.