UN International Day of Education

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Helen Grant

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

I am hugely honoured to be the UK’s special envoy for girls’ education, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) for her very kind words. My role is to champion globally the Prime Minister’s message that providing every girl on the planet with 12 years’ quality education is the best way of tackling many of the problems facing the world today. Investing in girls’ education is a game changer. A child with a mother who can read is 50% more likely to live beyond the age of five, twice as likely to attend school themselves, and 50% more likely to be immunised. Girls’ education is therefore vital for women and girls, who make up 51% of the population, but it is also vital to levelling up society and developing economies and nations.

Even before covid-19, the world was facing a learning crisis. Tragically, the pandemic has become one of the biggest educational disruptors in our history, affecting 1.6 billion children at its peak in 2020. Many of these children are girls, and many of them will never return to school, or even start school, lowering their chances of future employment and decent livelihoods. To avert this tragedy, we must up our game globally and respond. For the UK, this has begun with leadership from the very top. Our Prime Minister has put 12 years’ quality education for every girl at the very heart of our G7 presidency. Our Foreign Secretary has agreed global targets that include getting one third more girls reading by the age of 10 and 40 million more girls in primary and secondary school by 2025. This year, too, the UK will co-host with Kenya the financing summit for the Global Partnership for Education, working hard with our partners to get the replenishment commitments needed for girls’ education for the next five years.

I know that the weight of the challenge regarding girls’ education is very significant, but our ability to make a change in the world, if we work together, should never be underestimated. The international community must, however, adopt a more ambitious and co-ordinated approach to girls’ education. There needs to be more focus on quality, and on secondary education. We must also listen more carefully to what girls and young women say about what they want and need. Vitally, global leaders need to speak out much more, as our Prime Minister has done, on the importance of educating girls, explaining all the advantages for girls and women, their children, their families, their communities and their nations. Together, if we can make this happen—and I believe we can—the human race will be in a much, much better place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I apologise to the House and to the hon. Lady; the clocks are simply not working. In case it looks strange, I should tell the House that I have decided to work from my own clock. We will proceed from there.