Shaping Futures: Girls' Empowerment and Employability

Education and school completion are crucial for girls’ long-term health and socio-economic development. School completion data in India shows that attrition is high for low-income girls and boys as they transition from middle to secondary school, however, it is much higher for girls than boys. The factors that trigger attrition among girls include early marriage, parents’ fear for their safety and a perception among girls and their parents that secondary education is a poor investment due to a lack of concrete employment possibilities.

ICRW hypothesized that providing girls with the life skills needed to prepare them for formal employment and fostering their ambitions for a career can help keep them in school and catalyze their path toward formal jobs. The Ford Foundation funded ICRW (Nanda et al) to conduct a scoping study to assess the availability of livelihood programs for adolescent girls in India. The study found little evidence of school-based programs that provide marginalized adolescent girls with the life skills required to prepare them for formal employment. To address this critical gap, ICRW partnered with the Magic Bus India Foundation to design, pilot test and evaluate an initiative in Delhi, titled Planning Ahead for Girls’ Empowerment and Employability or (PAGE). In this report, we encapsulate the findings from the evaluation study of the PAGE program implemented in Delhi between 2014 and 2016.