Assessing Girls Education in Crisis Contexts

Abstract Book of the 9th Global Conference on Education and Teaching

Year: 2026

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Assessing Girls Education in Crisis Contexts

Chenghui Yang

ABSTRACT:

Supporting via educating girls is a powerful global investment that drives economic growth and breaks cycles of poverty. Yet, limited rigorous evidence has been claimed on which interventions are most effective. This study evaluated the practice of cash transfer (CT) humanitarian backup for girls’ education in areas of the Lake Chad Basin affected by Boko Haram. The research reveals that CT programs reduce schooling costs, encourage attendance, and support girls’ reintegration into education, as evidenced from programs such as Kipsaina Education and Environment Partnership. While these education-in-emergencies interventions are judged as success, they were assessed as primarily short-term gains without sustained impact. We thus argue that effectiveness should also be guaranteed through understanding girls’ lived realities and diversifying teaching modalities, which are more difficult to realise in practice and to assess in research. With this concern, the paper proposes that CT alone cannot overcome structural barriers of girl’s education, which includes factual and perceptional insecurity, sexual harrasment, pressure of early marriage, etc. To address, correponding education stakeholders need support of quasi-conditional CT and “cash-plus” models that combine financial assistance with broader gender-responsive and context-sensitive strategies for systematic supports, i.e., security protection, transportation, school feeding, menstrual hygiene support, referrals, and psychosocial services.

Keywords: Cash Transfer; Educating Girls; Girls’ Lived Realities; Sustained Participation; Women Education