Fact sheet and brief, CRANK

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

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.

Download resource

What these resources are for

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.

Why focus on education & child marriage?

In almost every context, education is a protective factor against child marriage: the longer a girl stays in school, the less likely she is to marry before age 18.[i] So, educational interventions support girls’ access to quality education as an alternative to marriage.[ii] There is growing evidence that access to schooling can delay marriage for girls through multiple pathways:

  1. In contexts where marriage and education are mutually exclusive, just being in school can be enough to prevent child marriage.
  2. In school, girls acquire skills, confidence, connections and new opportunities outside the home, expanding their aspirations beyond marriage.
  3. A critical mass of girls going to school can transform social norms in families and communities to expand opportunities for girls.

What works to improve education & child marriage outcomes?

1. National-level policies to improve outcomes at scale:

  • Remove school fees & financial barriers (uniforms, books, exams, transport)
  • Support girls’ transition & retention in secondary schooling
  • Implement gender-transformative approaches to schools, curricula & teaching
  • Develop policies that challenge gender discrimination & increase long-term economic opportunities for girls & women
  • Strengthen civil registration & education policies to include displaced & refugee girls

2. Multicomponent interventions linking education, social norms and livelihood programming:

  • Consider gender-transformative, whole-system approaches to address multiple drivers of child marriage
  • Use feminist participatory approaches to address gendered social norms & create inclusive education models with the wider community
  • Consider using cash transfers, combined with investment in key services

3. Targeted interventions accounting for context and the girls most at risk:

  • Consider the specific needs & barriers for ever-married, pregnant and/or parenting girls, LGBTQIA+ people and people with disabilities, and those affected by conflict & crisis
  • Blend formal and informal education to build girls’ foundational, transferable & technical skills
  • Use safe spaces to engage ever-married girls & girls affected by conflict & crisis in education & vocational training beyond school
  • Consider (married) girls’ unpaid domestic & care work

Practical tools to support policy and programmatic work on child marriage and girls’ education

Spaces for learning:

  • ALIGN platform: A digital platform focusing on resources for gender justice and equality, with resources on child marriage, education, GBV, social norms and more.
  • UNGEI knowledge hub: A digital library with learning content relating to gender in education, including collections around school-related GBV and education in emergencies.
  • UNGEI learning series: Designed to build evidence, promote good practice and facilitate intergenerational knowledge sharing on gender equality and education.

Help us build a more inclusive evidence base

We are committed to building a more diverse, inclusive evidence base on what works to address child marriage and advance girls’ rights. To be a part of it, you can:

Submit your research to the Child Marriage Research to Action Network (the CRANK) for inclusion in an online research tracker.

Sign up to the CRANK for resources and opportunities to participate in quarterly research meetings.

Feed back on these resources so we can learn what works for you.

We use cookies to give you a better online experience and for marketing purposes.

Read the Girls Not Brides' privacy policy