It's the year 2016 where almost everyone seems to have an IPhone and our world appears to be the most advanced it has ever been. Although educating girls seems normal to us living in the US, it's extremely controversial in third world countries for a variety of cultural reasons. You don't stop to think that 58 million girls worldwide still aren't going to school (A World at School). And you certainly don't experience young girls dropping out of elementary school to get married; a common occurrence in many impoverished nations. So, I am researching how many girls in third world countries have to choose to either follow traditional roles in their community or pursue an education.  I feel passionately about the education of girls because in the 21st century because I feel that girls should be able to be educated and not be pressured into assigned gender roles like only being a wife and mother. I personally support the education of girls because I attended an all girls high school and experienced first hand the value of an education. Throughout high school, I was a representative for Unified for Uganda, a nonprofit organization that sponsored the education of children in Uganda. I also studied the documentary Girls Rising and researched the power of an education for a girl and the many reasons that prevent girls from attending school. 

In understanding why girls don't attend school, one article from CNN.com detailed the impact of traditional culture reinforcing the idea that girls are only to be wives and mothers, therefore, they have no need for an education. This was exhibited in Nigeria in 2014 when the terrorist group kidnapped hundreds of girls from a school. Additionally, because of the political instability in Nigeria between Boko Haram and the government, the consequences are that even if girls are enrolled in school, many drop out due to the location of this violence and the threat of being kidnapped by Boko Haram. "If young Nigerian women had the same employment rates as young men, the country would add $13.9 billion to its GDP annually" (Girl Effect). The authors, Vladmimir Duthiers, Fairth Karimi, and Greg Botelho, are all college graduates and interviewed a Boko Haram survivor. All three CNN authors also present the information in an unbiased manner as possible considering they are focusing on a terrorist group that uses violence and violates basic human rights. And since the article is published on CNN, a credible news source, it is valuable information. 

More reasons as to why girls do not attend school are explored in an article published on A World at School. Girls face a multitude of cultural stipulations such a child marriage and child labor that take precedence over them going to school. In many African and Asian countries, it is more important for families to set up an arranged marriage for their daughter. Another issue unique to girls is their menstrual cycle. During that time of the month, it is acceptable for girls to skip school, which only causes them to fall far behind in their classes. This issue in particular could be easily solved if schools had proper sanitation as many lack restrooms. A World at School organization works hard to spread awareness and raise money for educating girls and all children. So it is biased in supporting the education of girls, but it provides strong data to reinforce its claims. 

The two previous articles have briefly examined some strong support for education of girls and an overview of some of the reasons why it is normal for young girls to not attend class. A blog post by Pauline Rose, a writer with a PhD in development studies and a professor of Children's Education, takes a more factual approach to both sides of the issue. Her article includes a large data sheet of the percent of girls aged seven to sixteen who have never attended school and the average number of years that girls aged seventeen to twenty-two have been to school. The data for the countries listed, collected from Human Rights Watch, are the bottom countries worldwide for their education rates. It can be concluded that worldwide, it is more common for girls in countries in Africa to not go to school rather than go to school. 

When looking at this issue with a Western perspective, it does not appear controversial because it is typical for all girls to have some level of education in the US and in most dominant world powers. It is crucial to examine the topic of female education from the perspective of the countries where it does not occur. Aside from statistical evidence demonstrating how an education could drastically impact a young girl's life, many believe that a right to education should not be denied because of one's gender. But, in many of these third world countries, the education of girls clashes with the culture role of women that has been in place for centuries and so educating a girl who is expected to only be a wife and mother clashes with cultural elements. For the most part, all my sources do support the education of girls, but particularly the CNN article gives insight as to why girls are not being educated. 
