Women Education and Empowerment: Building Stronger Futures Through Learning

Women’s education and empowerment are two sides of the same goal. As the UN’s 1994 Cairo Programme of Action puts it, “education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence” needed to take part in development (UNFPA).

The progress is real, and so is the gap. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) team reported in 2025 that 133 million girls are still out of school (UNESCO GEM Report, 2025; reported by PTI). Two-thirds of the 739 million adults who lack basic literacy are women (UNESCO).

This guide brings together the latest figures from UNESCO, the World Bank, UNHCR and IRENA, and what Imece Initiative has learned working with refugee women in İzmir, Türkiye.

Key Facts at a Glance

What is Women’s Empowerment Through Education?

Women’s empowerment means women gaining control over the decisions that shape their lives: their health, their income, their family and their voice in public life. The UN called it “a highly important end in itself” at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (UNFPA).

Education is the main route there. It builds knowledge (reading, numbers, rights), skills that lead to paid work, and the confidence to use both. The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action adds that “literacy of women is an important key to improving health, nutrition and education in the family” (UNFPA).

In short, education leads to the empowerment of women when it changes what a woman can do, not only what she knows.

Why Education and Women’s Empowerment Go Hand in Hand

The World Bank’s 2018 study of girls’ education found that women with secondary schooling do better on almost every measure of empowerment (World Bank, 2018):

• Work and income: they are more likely to work and earn almost twice as much as women with no education.
• Decisions: they have “a better ability to make decisions in their household”, including about their own health care.
• Safety and wellbeing: they report higher psychological wellbeing and are less likely to experience intimate partner violence.
• Family: secondary schooling for girls is linked to the near-elimination of child marriage and to lower child mortality and malnutrition.

The Economic Case for Educating Women

Limited educational opportunities for girls cost countries an estimated $15 trillion to $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings (World Bank, 2018). UNESCO puts the loss in human capital from gender inequality at about US$160 trillion, roughly twice the value of global GDP (UNESCO, 2024).

The gap is widest in the fields that shape future jobs. In 30 of 121 countries, fewer than 20% of engineering graduates are women; in 61 of 115 countries, fewer than 30% of computer science graduates are women (UNESCO, 2024).

Health and The Next Generation

The benefits of women’s education reach their children. In countries with high population growth, secondary education for girls lowers fertility rates by a third, and it is linked to lower child mortality and malnutrition (World Bank, 2018). Earlier UNESCO data found that a child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to survive past age 5 (UNESCO, 2010, via Population Reference Bureau).

Where Women’s Education Stands in 2025–2026

Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration, there are 91 million more girls in primary school and 136 million more in secondary school than in 1995 (UNESCO GEM team, 2025). Globally, girls now match or outperform boys in secondary completion and reading (UNESCO, 2024).

Progress is uneven. Women hold only 30% of leadership positions in higher education, and sub-Saharan Africa has still not reached gender parity in enrolment (UNESCO GEM team, 2025). In Afghanistan, 75% of school-age girls are out of school (UNESCO, 2024).

Barriers That Still Stand in the Way

Poverty and Cost

Poverty widens every gender gap. In Côte d’Ivoire there are 72 young women in school for every 100 young men, but only 22 poor young women for every 100 young men. Where primary and secondary education are neither compulsory nor free, only 9% of young women enrol in higher education (UNESCO, 2024).

Child Marriage and Early Pregnancy

Keeping girls in school is one of the strongest protections against child marriage: secondary schooling for girls is linked to its near-elimination (World Bank, 2018), and UNESCO notes that educating girls can help end early and unintended pregnancy (UNESCO, 2024).

Gender Norms in Science and Technology

Gender is one of the strongest factors in whether someone pursues STEM education and careers (UNESCO, 2024), which keeps women out of many of the best-paid jobs.

Unpaid Care Work

Many women cannot attend classes because no one else can look after their children. Programmes that provide childcare or children’s activities during training remove that barrier directly (Ashden, 2022).

Conflict and Displacement

War and forced displacement interrupt education for millions of women and girls, often for years. This is the widest gap of all.

Refugee Women and Girls: The Widest Education Gap

Displacement cuts education short at every level. UNHCR’s 2025 Education Report found that 67% of refugee children are enrolled in primary school, 37% in secondary school and only 9% of refugee youth in higher education (UNHCR, 2025). Girls fall furthest behind: UNHCR has reported that refugee girls at secondary level are “only half as likely to enrol as their male peers” (UNHCR, Her Turn, 2018).

Türkiye hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world (see our guide to refugee numbers in Türkiye). UNICEF reported in July 2024 that almost 400,000 refugee children in Türkiye were still out of school, even though the share of out-of-school children fell by nearly 30% between 2014 and 2020 (UNICEF Türkiye, 2024).

For adult refugee women, the barriers stack up: a new language, interrupted schooling, childcare, and very limited ways to earn. Imece works mainly with Syrian families, and increasingly with families from Afghanistan, Ukraine and Africa; our guide to Syrian refugees in Türkiye explains their legal status and living conditions, and Syrian refugee population by province shows where they live. That is why practical skills training matters as much as classroom learning.

Beyond the Classroom: Skills for Green Jobs

Women’s empowerment through education does not stop at school. Vocational training can lead directly to income, and clean energy is one of the most open fields for women: they hold 40% of jobs in solar PV, compared with 32% across renewables and 22% in oil and gas (IRENA, Solar PV: A Gender Perspective, 2022).

Imece’s Solar Age programme in İzmir builds on this. In a six-week course, refugee and migrant women learn basic electricity, electrical soldering and how to install home solar systems, and build portable solar-charged power banks for displaced people. Alongside the training they receive Turkish lessons, first aid training and mental health support, while their children take part in education activities (Ashden, 2022). The programme won the COP26 Gender Just Climate Solutions Award in 2021 (WECF) and was an Ashden Awards finalist in 2022 (Ashden).

For more on how solar skills change women’s lives, read our article on clean energy education and women’s empowerment.

[Editor: add a consented photo of a Solar Age training session here, alt text “Refugee women learning to solder solar components at Imece’s training space in İzmir”.]

How Imece Supports Women’s and Girls’ Education in İzmir

• Solar Age: solar and electrical training for refugee and migrant women, as described above.
• Back to School: mobile and tent classes in informal camps covering hygiene, Turkish, the Latin alphabet, maths and psychosocial play, followed by help enrolling children in Turkish schools.
• Educational activities in Basmane: a weekly programme for children aged 6 to 13, plus activities for under-6s, at Imece’s community centre.
• “Let’s Talk About It”: safe-space seminars for women on health, hygiene and protection.
• Back to Home: vocational training for Syrian women preparing to return home, in home electricity, solar, carpentry and sustainable agriculture, with workshops for their children. For background, see Syrian refugees returning to Syria and why Syrian refugees are returning.

How You Can Help

• Donate: your gift funds school supplies, food packages, solar power banks and teacher support.
• Volunteer: run children’s activities or support classes in İzmir, or help remotely through Imece Germany and Imece France.
• Knit: send wool clothing for children in camps through Warming Hearts Knitting.
• Share: pass this article on to people who care about education and equality.

Frequently Asked Questions

Moving Forward Together

Women’s education and empowerment have advanced further in the last 30 years than ever before, but 133 million girls are still out of school and refugee women remain the furthest behind. Every classroom, training course and safe space closes part of that gap.

Further Reading

• How many refugees are there in Türkiye?
• Syrian refugees in Türkiye
• Clean energy education and women’s empowerment
• Refugees in Türkiye: all articles

About Imece Initiative

Imece Initiative (İmece İnisiyatifi Derneği) is a grassroots, non-political and non-religious association that has worked with displaced families in İzmir, Türkiye, for over a decade. Its programmes cover emergency aid, children’s education and solar-energy training for refugee women.