Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 7, 1993                   TAG: 9309070046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

THIRD WORLD ADVISED: LET GIRLS IN SCHOOL

Educating girls as well as boys may be the best investment developing countries can make in their futures, according to a new study by the World Bank.

Women with even an elementary education raise the living standard in a poor country, argues Elizabeth M. King, one of the study's authors. They have fewer children, take better care of those they do have, work better at home and earn more when they take a job or market their own crops, she said.

"Education of girls may seem an odd subject for an economist to address," said former World Bank official Lawrence H. Summers, undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs. "But enhancing women's contribution to development is as much an economic as a social issue."

There are obstacles in many countries to a girl's getting into school and staying there, King said. She quoted the headmistress of a girl's school in Pakistan:

"There's no light, no fan. It is very depressing and dreary and suffocating. There is no toilet. When they need a latrine, the girls have to go home during school hours, wasting a considerable amount of time."

And a woman in the northwest African republic of Mali:

"School is considered by parents to encourage promiscuity among adolescents because they promote a Western-style liberal education which encourages sexuality."

Many parents feel they cannot afford the cost of sending a girl to school, King said. In some countries, the smallest girls - often as young as 5 - are expected to help their mothers, much more than boys.

The study takes a look at the education of 18-year-olds in some poor and some richer countries. It found that a boy in the West African republic of Benin, for example, could be expected to have spent seven years in school but a girl only half as long.

The average income in Benin is about $380 a year, and has been dropping all through the 1980s. One adult in four can read and write, but only one woman in six.

In Portugal, 18-year-olds will have spent over 10 years in school, the average girl a few months longer than the average boy.