To celebrate International Day of the Girl today, HP Inc. and Girl Rising have launched a three-year education partnership of curriculum and technology solutions for up to 10 million students and teachers in the US, India and Nigeria.
More than 130 million girls around the world continue to lack access to education, and women account for two thirds of the 750 million adults who lack basic literacy skills. The program announced today is part of HP’s global commitment to enable learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025.
The new curriculum supports the organizations’ goals to develop the next generation of female leaders by providing educational content, technology, multimedia assets, activities, and lesson plans to students and teachers.
“We are devoted to this cause because it is a proven catalyst: giving girls access to education and opportunity is the most effective factor in transforming pressing global issues including health, poverty, and climate change,” Christina Lowery, CEO of Girl Rising, a non-profit that has previously partnered with HP, said in a press release. Girl Rising and HP support the belief that education is a fundamental human right that creates pathways to new opportunities. To facilitate this, HP will include a suite of software consisting of Girl Rising’s teacher training modules, focused on youth empowerment and life skills, as well as a library of content, pre-loaded onto HP Education Edition PCs.
“This cause … it is a proven catalyst: giving girls access to education and opportunity is the most effective factor in transforming pressing global issues including health, poverty, and climate change,” Lowery added.
HP wants to “the best of humanity through the power of technology,” Michele Malejki, global head, social impact programs at HP, said in a press release. “Girl Rising is doing groundbreaking work to empower women and girls around the world,” and added, “our collaboration will equip millions of both students and teachers with the curriculum and technology they need to thrive.”
The HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurship (HP LIFE), a free e-learning program from the HP Foundation was created to support entrepreneurship and skills development. HP School Packs, a suite of software for educators, will also be available for the duration of the program. HP will evaluate additional opportunities for Girl Rising, including new products and services, as well as additional partners to scale the program over the next three years.
Both India and Nigeria have rapidly growing populations of young people with extreme numbers of children not in school, with 41% of the population in Nigeria under the age of 16, and 10.5 million of these children are out of school. India has the world’s largest population of 10- to 24-year-olds, and it is estimated that 47 million of that population will drop out of school by the 10th grade.
Girl Rising and HP previously collaborated in the launch of the Hindi language version of Girl Rising in India in 2015, the 2018 Girl Rising Creative challenge to celebrate every day gender-equality champions worldwide, and the production and distribution of “Brave Girl Rising” earlier this year. HP and Girl Rising are now scaling efforts to improve learning outcomes and gender attitudes for both boys and girls.
HP’s contribution, Lowery said, supports GirlRising with a commitment “to radically scale our efforts to ensure girls everywhere have the knowledge, skills and confidence to decide their own futures.”
[“source=techrepublic”]
