CRANK Research Spotlight: Education interventions to address child marriage and support married girls

Objectives

In 2011, the WHO published a set of guidelines on preventing early pregnancy and poor reproductive outcomes in adolescents. In 2023, they commissioned a review of the evidence to update these guidelines, including a focus on effective interventions, promising practice and recommendations to prevent child marriage and support married girls. The guidelines are organised around seven core themes: cash transfers, economic empowerment, education, girls’ empowerment, the law, meaningful youth engagement and social norms.

In this brief, we look at the evidence drawn from 17 studies focused on educational interventions to expand access and quality, and their impact on child marriage prevalence. We then outline the implications of this evidence, identify gaps, and suggest other areas for investigation and resources to support programme and policy work

Findings

Most educational interventions contribute to reduced child marriage, with 11 of the 17 studies showing a statistically significant impact.

- Successful educational interventions often include tuition fee elimination policies for primary and secondary school. Removing financial barriers – beyond fees – can also have broad impacts on schooling and child marriage outcomes, particularly for the girls who have been most marginalised.

- Increased access to secondary school can lower child marriage prevalence, with consistent evidence from Bangladesh, Colombia, Liberia, Tanzania, Uganda and Turkey. Fee-free secondary school may be more effective at reducing child marriage and childbearing than free primary education alone.

- In addition to national-level policies for all school-age girls, programmes that target those most at risk can also be effective in closing opportunity gaps and reducing child marriage. This includes removing financial barriers beyond school fees.

Recommendations

- National-level policy interventions to remove school fees may be a promising approach to improve educational outcomes and child marriage prevention at scale, but other financial barriers also need to be addressed.

- Girls’ transition and access to secondary school is a key area for investment. Most countries now provide fee-free primary education, which is essential for girls to progress to secondary level. Fee-free secondary

education may be effective because it serves adolescent girls at an age when they are at increased risk of child marriage, and/or because this level of schooling is more likely to improve their labour market prospects.

- The impact of education on child marriage may be limited in settings where adolescent girls and women cannot translate this into longer-term economic opportunities.

Summary

Brief and poster exploring the evidence behind the WHO recommendation to remove gender-based barriers and ensure girls' completion of 12 years of quality education. Includes implications for policy and programmatic work and research, and practical tools to support implementation of such interventions.

Purpose

To prevent child marriage and support married girls, the World Health Organisation (WHO) strongly recommends implementing interventions to remove gender-based barriers to education and ensure girls’ completion of 12 years of quality education.

In the brief, we look at the evidence behind this recommendation, and the implications for policy and programmatic work and research. We also offer additional evidence, insights and practical tools to support implementation of such interventions.

In the poster, we summarise the key findings and insights to highlight what works to improve girls' education and child marriage outcomes.

You can use both materials, including their themes and areas for consideration, as prompts for further discussion and research, and to ensure your work is informed by the existing evidence.

Girls Not Brides has also produced a social media toolkit on education and child marriage, which you can use to raise awareness of the impacts, key facts and recommendations for governments on these two issues.

Audience

Those involved in policy and programming to advance girls' right to education and end child marraige.