Providing Remote Education to Afghan Girls

The OECD predicts that by 2030, 80% of the world’s poor will live in fragile states and 30% will live in “extremely fragile” countries. These countries exemplify how fragility, extreme poverty, political oppression, and gender deprivation reinforce one another, leaving intergenerational scars. In Afghanistan, the oppression of women is particularly acute, with girls being prohibited from attending school beyond the sixth grade. We need solutions to provide education to oppressed groups in fragile states. Our proposed project aims to help address this challenge by exploring the efficacy of mobile phone-based instruction in teaching Afghan girls who are no longer able to access education outside the home. This intervention could represent a cost-effective and scalable means of remediating women’s education in Afghanistan, where the need is extreme, with lessons for other fragile states. The project will also study how foundational education facilitates empowerment in a highly discriminatory environment.