Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what plans her Department has to help ensure that as schools reopen internationally, girls are not prevented from returning to education.

Ensuring 12 years of quality education for all children, especially girls, is a UK priority, particularly in responding to the COVID 19 pandemic. We are helping to mitigate the short-term risks to children by focussing on their safety, nutrition, wellbeing and learning whilst schools are closed. The UK has announced £20 million for UNICEF’s crisis appeal, which includes education, and a further £5 million to the Education Cannot Wait fund to support emergency education in fragile contexts.

Getting girls and the most marginalised back to school is one of the most important challenges the international education community has ever faced. As the Ebola crisis in West Africa showed, girls in particular are highly vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of the crisis. We are re-orienting our programmes in 18 countries to help education ministries plan for school re-opening. At global level we will support UNICEF’s Re-Opening Better campaign, with particular focus on the needs of girls and the most marginalised children.