UN Millennium Development Goals: As We Push for Girls' Education, Let's Also Invest in Their Mothers Educating girls is now seen by most international policymakers as the foundation for sound economic growth for poor nations. However, only 79 out of 100 girls who enroll in primary school are still there five years later. The best way to reverse this high dropout rate is to invest in more income and assets for girls' mothers. As soon as the sun rises, 15-year-old Branca rushes to the nearest water pump, more than half a mile away from her family’s mud hut in Matete in rural northwestern Angola. Before the start of her school day, she must carry a five gallon water bucket back home and help her mother and sister prepare breakfast. She is in fourth grade at a UNICEF-supported primary school, six years behind the normal educational cycle. Her class has twelve boys and two girls. Branca is the lucky one in her family. Her older sister, Suzana, who is 18, has not finished primary school and helps her mother in the fields. Enrolling more girls like Branca in school is now seen by most international policymakers as the foundation for sound economic growth for poor nations: as girls’ education levels increase in a country, so does per capita GDP. There is still a big gender gap in education worldwide. Of the 135 million children between age 7 and 18 who are not in school at all, 60 percent are girls. The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were adopted by all 191 members of the United Nations five years ago to encourage sustainable economic development worldwide, stress education for girls as one of the main tools for attaining equality for women. Goal 3 of the MDGs states that gender disparities in primary and secondary education should be eliminated preferably by 2005, and gender disparities at all levels of education should be eliminated by 2015. But when world leaders gather at the largest-ever UN World Summit in New York between September 14 and 16 to evaluate progress on these goals, they will find that about 70 nations will likely miss the ambitious goal set for this year. And while it is disturbing enough that far fewer girls than boys are enrolling in school, it is even more disturbing that out of every 100 girls who enroll in primary school worldwide, only 79 are still there five years later. Clearly, girls need special support to stay in school. The best way to ensure that Branca stays in school is to invest in her mother, making sure she has access to more income and assets. Women like her do two thirds of the world’s work, but earn one tenth of its income and own less than one percent of its property. For Branca’s mother, cost is by far the biggest factor in determining whether she can send her daughters to school. When families are unable to pay for school fees, books, uniforms or travel costs for all their children, they calculate that, since men have greater earning potential than women, it is a smarter investment to educate their sons than their daughters. And where sending a girl to school means sacrificing her work at home caring for siblings or elders, or in the fields helping parents, the choice to educate may actually jeopardize the family’s survival. Around the world, girls have less access to education at all levels of society, but the inequality is far worse in poorer families. The more successful recent girls’ education programs now include indirect support for poor families: eliminating school fees and uniforms, providing free or subsidized books and meals at school. Investing directly in mothers would bolster these efforts and increase immeasurably the chances of girls staying in school. Research has consistently shown that women in every culture reinvest any extra income they have in their families, especially in better nutrition and education for their children. That’s why greater economic opportunity for poor women is so essential to ensuring an education for their daughters. Every additional year in school increases the daughter’s earning potential by about 15 percent, creating a positive cycle that reduces poverty for the family as a whole. Years of investment in education have meant that millions of girls like Branca, who had no access to education a few years ago, are now able to go to school. But at Branca’s school, girl students are regularly absent twice a week on market days, when they work as vendors to help make ends meet at home. If international assistance programs are to help them stay in school until they graduate, we must invest strategically in their mothers, so that they in turn can support their daughters’ quest for education and a better life.  (Source: Women's Edge Coalition).