Antara Ganguli

It has been 10 years since 276 girls were abducted from Government Girls' Secondary School, Chibok in Borno, Nigeria, by Jama'atul ahl al-sunnah li da'awati wal jihad, also known as Boko Haram. Since then, thousands of children have been abducted, raped, and forcibly recruited, and the number is increasing: on March 7, 2024, another 200 children were abducted from a local government school in northwest Nigeria.

In this blogpost, Antara Ganguli, Martha Muhwezi and Anna Murru make the case for gender-transformative education as a catalyst for societal change. In Zambia, Anna chose her school subjects based on what was considered acceptable for a girl, rather than following her passion, impacting the course of her future. “I wanted to be a builder or an architect, but my father told me I could not because I was a girl, so I gave up technical drawing and rejoined the home economics classes”.

Authored by Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director General Education, UNESCO; Antara Ganguli, Director, UNGEI Secretariat; Chloe Fevre, Director Safe to Learn; James O’Higgins Norman, UNESCO Chair on Bullying and Cyberbulling, Dublin City University The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said at the Transforming Education Summit “Schools of the future need to be more inclusive, safe, healthy and stimulating…Violence, harassment, and bullying are all too commonplace.