On September 21, 1832, in Boston's Franklin Hall, the first American woman to deliver a public lecture, Maria Stewart, shocked the town when she stood and spoke. What cause compelled her to abandon social norms and decorum so brazenly? "Daughters of Africa, awake! Arise!," she cried, as she demanded that the United States provide education for black girls.
As so often turns out to be the case, our forebears were right. If Mrs. Stewart, herself an African-American, knew what we know about development today, her demand would be the same now as it was then. Every shred of evidence we've accumulated over the past 30 years of academic and policy research, all the experience of our development efforts, confirm what our pioneering ancestors knew innately: education for all our children--poor, rich, white, black, boys, girls--means healthier babies, stronger families, wealthier economies, and more vibrant democracies.
Ask leaders of the "tiger" economies of Southeast Asia their secret for rapid development, and they'll all tell you the same thing: first and foremost, we invested in our people. In its most basic form, that's what development is: investing in people and their welfare.
So, where does the world stand now? Roughly speaking, almost everyone in the rich countries, the formerly communist countries, and the Asian tigers is educated, with adult literacy rates approaching 100%, as are people of means in the poor countries. The poor in poor countries, however, fare worse, as do some poor people in rich countries. With half of the world's 6 billion people living on $2 per day or less, the education gap remains stark.
Indeed, reasonable estimates put the number of school-age children who are not attending school at 113 million, with 97% living in developing countries. These numbers are bad, and they're getting worse. According to the UN's Human Development Report, one in five children in the world's poorest countries does not go to school, including a staggering 40% of school-age kids in sub-Saharan Africa.
On September 21, 1832, in Boston's Franklin Hall, the first American woman to deliver a public lecture, Maria Stewart, shocked the town when she stood and spoke. What cause compelled her to abandon social norms and decorum so brazenly? "Daughters of Africa, awake! Arise!," she cried, as she demanded that the United States provide education for black girls.
As so often turns out to be the case, our forebears were right. If Mrs. Stewart, herself an African-American, knew what we know about development today, her demand would be the same now as it was then. Every shred of evidence we've accumulated over the past 30 years of academic and policy research, all the experience of our development efforts, confirm what our pioneering ancestors knew innately: education for all our children--poor, rich, white, black, boys, girls--means healthier babies, stronger families, wealthier economies, and more vibrant democracies.
Ask leaders of the "tiger" economies of Southeast Asia their secret for rapid development, and they'll all tell you the same thing: first and foremost, we invested in our people. In its most basic form, that's what development is: investing in people and their welfare.
So, where does the world stand now? Roughly speaking, almost everyone in the rich countries, the formerly communist countries, and the Asian tigers is educated, with adult literacy rates approaching 100%, as are people of means in the poor countries. The poor in poor countries, however, fare worse, as do some poor people in rich countries. With half of the world's 6 billion people living on $2 per day or less, the education gap remains stark.
Indeed, reasonable estimates put the number of school-age children who are not attending school at 113 million, with 97% living in developing countries. These numbers are bad, and they're getting worse. According to the UN's Human Development Report, one in five children in the world's poorest countries does not go to school, including a staggering 40% of school-age kids in sub-Saharan Africa.