NPR – Marc Silver
“Hello pencils, hello books, hello teacher’s dirty looks. Yes, school is back in session. And students are no doubt grumbling about the end of the carefree summer. But in some parts of the world, there are kids who don’t get a chance to complain about what a drag it is to go back to school. Because they really want to go to school … only they’re not able. A lot of them are girls. The theory has been that sometimes parents simply don’t value an education for their daughters. Maybe the parents figure the girls will go on to marry and leave the family fold, so they are unlikely to give any money back to Mom and Dad. Or maybe the parents just want their daughters home to do chores. How do you fight the attitude? In Zimbabwe a couple of decades ago, well-meaning aid groups were putting up posters and running TV ads encouraging parents (many of whom did not even own TVs) to send their daughters to school, as if all they needed was a little friendly persuasion.”(more)