Policy paper

Supporting girls’ education worldwide: results

Updated 19 February 2024

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

© Crown copyright 2024

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The UK is recognised as leading worldwide on girls’ education. Since 2015 we have supported at least 19.8 million children to gain a decent education, including over 10 million girls.

The UK has supported a total of 19.8 million children with a decent education since 2015. Ten million of these children were girls and 9.5 million of these children were boys.

The UK is committed to supporting the girls living in the most challenging circumstances.

The UK’s Girls’ Education Challenge programme has helped more than 1.6 million girls across 17 countries to access learning opportunities. This includes:

  • 152,000 girls with disabilities who previously faced significant barriers to attending school
  • 179,000 girls who had never been to school
  • 65,000 girls who had been excluded from school because they were mothers
  • 495,000 of the most vulnerable girls living in fragile and conflict-affected contexts

View more information about results estimates.

Why girls’ education

Educating girls is one of the most cost effective and impactful investments we can make, with intergenerational benefits.

A child whose mother can read is:

  • 50% more likely to live beyond the age of 5
  • 50% more likely to be immunised, and
  • twice as likely to attend school themselves [footnote 1]

Girls’ education boosts incomes and develops economies. With just one additional school year, a woman’s earnings can increase by a fifth, creating a more prosperous world for all.

Go back to UK government support for girls’ education worldwide.

  1. Education Counts, UNESCO (unesco.org) (accessed 11 July 2023) ↩

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