Assignment 3: what's so scary about smart girls? Fanxi Maychie 4C

Summary:
Educated girls are the greatest threat to extremism because they have a force powerful enough to transform a society. Firstly, they can change demography. Educated girls help curb birthrates which leads to stability, by reducing the youth bulge. An uneducated girl on average, will have a significantly smaller family than educated buys. Secondly, educating girls can double the formal labour force, boosting the economy, raising living standards and promoting a virtuous cycle of development. Lastly, when a country educates and unleashes women, those educated women often become force multipliers for good. They tend to become the backbone of large companies like Grameen Bank, development organizations like BRAC and the garment industry.

RR:
In my opinion, those countries mentioned in the article has to firstly educate their girls, and also then unleash them with their knowledge, into the working population. Only educating them is not enough, but it definitely is the primary step towards liberating the countries, bringing them better economies, better standard of living and also ridding them of oppressive extremist groups. Educating girls will double the labour force and bring about better economy, and an example will be in Bangladesh, which emphasised on education, causing them to have more girls than boys in high schools. These girls then grew into women who formed the backbone of Garmeen Bank, developmental organisations like BRAC and the garment industry. Girls should be accorded the same right to education as boys and this is no longer just a moral problem that is about equality or rights, but in fact, it is an obvious solution that can solve many of the pressing problems in those societies mentioned in the article. Only when girls and boys work together with their knowledge gathered from school, these societies can truly escape the poverty cycle and even escape from the claws of those extremist groups and celebrate their country. They will not be forced to remain under the oppressive Boko Haram or Taliban after they have knowledge to think and plan for themselves. These girls will also have to be free to use their knowledge for their country as opposed to being kept at home after that, which is equally important as educating them. According to the article, countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran refused to empower their women despite educating them, causing their country to continue to stagnate in the past, unable to move forward. Many women have already shown their capabilities with their knowledge, thus it is key for the countries to starting educating girls. In conclusion, the battle against the groups opposing this idea will be tough, but it definitely is something worthy for other countries like USA to invest in as it is a straightforward solution to many problems within those countries in the article.