The right to education has moved to the forefront as being one of the most complex and serious human rights issues today.

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The right to education has moved to the forefront as being one of the most complex and serious human rights issues today. The majority of these issues are happening to women and girls, who are not given the opportunity to attain a higher knowledge. As noble peace prize winner Amartya Sen once said; “education is among the “personal  freedoms” to which all human being should have a claim”. Girls face discrimination and challenging circumstances that keep them out of school and prevent them from learning. This violation is often neglected or pushed aside because it is not an immediate threat to life. What needs to be realized is that education can be seen as the key to opening up doors for development – it is the tool that will help people rise up in solidarity to fight other atrocities, but without education, there is little hope. A nation must alter existing social structures to allow the full participation of women in the economy and change popular attitudes so women are given the chance to realize their full potential, all of which will accelerate economic growth and development. To assess the importance of educating women as an approach for development, it is important to first look at how the theory of Human Capital is the overarching theme. Next, the benefits the developing world will receive if they invest in female education must be outlined. However, these benefits are hard to achieve due to the social barriers that stand as a divide between women and education. Finally, offering policy responses to these barriers presents possibilities to how these roadblocks can be broken and the benefits established.

The disparities in women and education are the greatest in developing countries. The origins of this violation to providing women with the right to education, is rooted in deep social and cultural concerns or constructs of a particular society.  These constructs are found within tradition, religious practices, and community- based morals. In many situations these constructs do not see the value of educating girls. In these societies girls are likely to be discriminated against from the beginning. They may receive less care, both in terms of nurturing and in terms of food. Their schooling is often sacrificed for their labor at home, or child workers in factories. Often parents simply do not think it is important to send girls to school.  Cultural barriers to education are often the barriers that even women do not have the knowledge to erode. The right to their education is denied, yes, but this denial is accepted. It is this acceptance that constitutes the grounds for the violation. A more in depth analysis of the cultural imperialism attached to the right to education will be addressed in subsequent areas of this paper. When girls are raised not to value themselves as qualified learners and without a sense of the human rights to which they are entitled, they are less apt to participate in schools.  

The benefits of educating women as a means of development, is supported by many theories and approaches that believes it is a viable answer. Girls' education is a core development issue. Every year a girl is in school is a progressive step toward eliminating poverty, advancing sustainable human development, and stopping the spread and mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS. Accelerating efforts in girls' education exerts a strong force for social transformation, addressing issues of exclusion and discrimination while promoting the values of tolerance, equality and mutual respect   The Human Capital Approach, although, can be personally abrupt in categorizing humans as “resources,” puts the advancement of the human being as top priority in economic growth. Human Capital is the term economists use for education, health and other human capacities that can raise productivity when increased (Todaro, 39). This gives the human being prime status as the most important resource to any economy. The idea of investing in human capital introduces a notion that human beings themselves can be considered capital and that the quality of this capital, measured by its productive output. Also, that it can be improved by increasing inputs of additional years of education. The human capital approach recognizes that more schooling leads to greater national returns. Educational improvements are seen to have an economic “value –added” effect on “human resources”(Woodward, 60), therefore directly increasing human capital. This approach states that development will occur when there is more investment and attention given to human capital. There is grounded evidence that educating women will improve their quality of life because of development indicators of progress. These indicators are measurements of the progress (or lack of it) made in ‘human development’ (including such areas as life expectancy, health, education and income) that attempt to calculate national progress in a more comprehensive way than simply the measurement of GNP (Woodward, 62). The indicators suggest that the education of third world women is key to improving the quality of life in a number of ways, which in turn has an impact on economic development. This study provides information that is used to convince governments and funding agencies to invest in education. The Human Capital Approach to economic development is the backbone explanation to why it is beneficial to invest in female education.  

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 The education of women directly benefits human capital. At the heart of these benefits is the profound way poverty can be alleviated if women were educated.

“Because women carry a disproportionate burden of the poverty and landlessness that permeates developing societies, any significant improvements in their role, via education, can have an important impact on breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and inadequate schooling”(Todaro, 377).

Investment in girl’s education holds some of the highest returns of all development investments, yielding both private and social benefits that attribute to individuals, families, and society at large. One particular ...

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