Learning Out Of Poverty

Education is foundational to human development and has a clear multiplier effect with benefits in health, broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction.

• A child born to an educated mother is more than 2x as likely to survive to age five.
• Educated mothers are 50% more likely to immunize their children than mothers without an education.
• Every extra year of school increases productivity by 10-30%
• A girl who completes basic education is 3x less likely to contract HIV/AIDS
• Educated women re-invest 90% of their income in their family. Men invest 30-40%

But still today:

• 1 in 4 women around the world cannot read this sentence
• Girls make up 53% of the children out of school
• 98% of people who can't read live in developing countries.

Sources: The Global Campaign for Education and RESULTS Educational Fund, Make It Right, Ending the Crisis in Girls' Education 2007 | Literacy Matters Fact Sheet | Van der Graag and Tan, The Benefits of Early Childhood Education Programs: An Economic Analysis, World Bank (1998) | The Global Campaign for Education and RESULTS Educational Fund, Make It Right, Ending the Crisis in Girls' Education 2007 | Sperling, Gene and Barbara Herz, What Works in Girls' Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World, Council on Foreign Relations (2004) | The Global Campaign for Education and RESULTS Educational Fund, Make It Right, Ending the Crisis in Girls' Education 2007 | UNESCO. Global Monitoring Report 2011: The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education. France: UNESCO Publishing, 43.