Malala's Impact, Part 1
By now, you may have heard of Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old Pakistani girl shot by Taliban militants in October 2012. For the past three years, Malala risked her life to advocate for Pakistani girls’ right to receive an education.
In honor of Malala’s ongoing fight, we are speaking with people from around the world about the education of girls and women.
Over a latte at Starbucks, a young Muslim woman named Mona and I discuss Malala Yousafzai, as well as education in Saudi Arabia.
Mona is proudly Saudi Arabian, studying at a U.S. university to earn her master’s degree in Instructional Media and Technology. Her hair is covered by a scarf, but she is not veiled. She smiles easily as she talks about her future goals. I’m not exactly sure who I expected to meet, but Mona’s casual clothing and open manner surprise me. As she talks, she reveals how far apart Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are with regard to educating girls. She also talks proudly about Saudi Arabia’s dedication to improving both educational and employment opportunities for women.
Today, Pakistan’s literacy rate for girls hovers around 40%, with as few as one in five girls attending school in some parts of the country. However, Saudi Arabia’s literacy rate is about 81% and primary education is compulsory for all children. Mona also emphasizes that Saudi women are becoming more educated through King Abdullah’s scholarship program—of which Mona is a recipient.
This Saudi scholarship program provides funding for about 30,000 Saudi scholarship recipients to study at U.S. universities in 2012 alone. Additionally, since 2005, the program has provided study abroad for more than 130,000 Saudi students in 46 countries worldwide—an impressive number. Of these 130,000 students, more than 20% are women, and that percentage rises dramatically when you consider more recent years.
According to statistics provided by the Saudi Arabia Cultural Mission, this year the Saudi government has committed about $45 billion—or 25% of its entire budget—to education spending. By comparison, the I Am Malala campaign is urging Pakistan’s President Zardari to commit 4% of Pakistan’s budget to education.
Through this recent commitment to improving educational opportunities, Saudi women now make up about 57% of university graduates. Employment of Saudi women also tripled between 1992 and 2010. However, even with this increase, only 15% of the Saudi workforce is female and Mona may still struggle to find employment when she returns home.
As formalized education in Saudi Arabia really only began less than 100 years ago, Mona notes that the U.S. university she attends is “older than all education in my country.” However, she writes in a college essay, “I am so proud of my country because it spends a lot of money and works hard to make education free and available to everyone. In addition, they are trying to understand the problems that our society faces and find solutions. I am proud to be Saudi.”
Mona explains that the Saudi government is seeking to close the gender gap through:
- government allowances provided to women for completing their degrees;
- strategies to increase the minimum marriage age;
- better training for female teachers; and
- increasing university and vocational school options and areas of study available to women.
Though she is proud of these efforts, she also feels that some “thinking in Saudi Arabia” will still need to change. After becoming more independent as a student living abroad, Mona reflects that it might be difficult to return to more restrictive cultural norms.
She is optimistic, though. Mona believes that her future in Saudi Arabia as an educated Saudi woman is full of possibilities. And as I think back to the reason we met in the first place—to talk about Malala Yousafzai and the education of girls—I realize that this hopefulness sums up what an education truly offers:
Malala is asking to be educated so that she—like Mona—can seek a future filled with possibility.