From Margins to Mainstream: Centering Girls in the Education Emergency

Developed through participatory engagement with adolescent girls, this policy brief names the systemic failures—patriarchal norms, economic barriers, unsafe transport, menstruation stigma, and gender-insensitive teaching—that trap girls in cycles of marginalisation, early marriage, and lost potential. It offers concrete solutions: embedding education-emergency protocols within gender-justice frameworks, a nationwide minimum marriage age of 18, social-emotional learning in curricula, gender-responsive financing with protected budgets, and girl-led initiatives that position young women as policy influencers rather than passive beneficiaries.

Key highlights/findings

13.7 million girls are out of school and the emergency response is mostly missing them.

Girls face overlapping barriers: unsafe transport, period stigma, unpaid care work, and curricula that don’t reflect their lives.

Child marriage remains one of the biggest drivers of dropout, with no uniform legal protection across provinces.

Teacher behaviour - harsh, overburdening, gender-insensitive - pushes girls out as much as pulls them in.