[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4508 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        H.R.4508

                     One Hundred Sixteenth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America


                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

           Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday,
            the third day of January, two thousand and twenty


                                 An Act


 
To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani women under 
             the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ``Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
    Congress makes the following findings:
        (1) In late 2008, Malala Yousafzai began making the case for 
    access to education for women and girls despite objections from the 
    Pakistani Taliban. On October 9, 2012, Malala was shot in the head 
    by Pakistani Taliban on her way home from school.
        (2) In 2013, Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai 
    co-founded the Malala Fund. The Malala Fund works to secure 12 
    years of free, safe, and quality education for all girls. 
    Completion of a full 12-year cycle of primary and secondary 
    education ensures a pipeline of girls able to pursue higher 
    education.
        (3) On July 12, 2013, Malala delivered a speech before the 
    United Nations General Assembly calling for expanded access to 
    education for women and girls across the globe. She said, ``[L]et 
    us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty, and 
    terrorism. Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are the most 
    powerful weapons * * *. Education is the only solution.''.
        (4) On October 10, 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the co-
    recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her ``struggle against the 
    suppression of children and young people and for the right of all 
    children to education''.
        (5) According to the United Nations 2016 Global Education 
    Monitoring Report, more than 130 million girls worldwide are out of 
    school. 15 million girls of primary-school age will never enter a 
    classroom. As of 2016, at least 500 million adult women across the 
    globe are illiterate.
        (6) According to the World Bank, ``Girls' education is a 
    strategic development priority. Better educated women tend to be 
    healthier, participate more in the formal labor market, earn higher 
    incomes, * * * marry at a later age, and enable better health care 
    and education for their children, should they choose to become 
    mothers. All these factors combined can help lift households, 
    communities, and nations out of poverty.''.
        (7) In 2015, all United Nations Member States, including the 
    United States, adopted quality education, including access to 
    higher education, and gender equality as sustainable development 
    goals to be attained by 2030. One of the education goal targets is 
    to ``ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and 
    quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including 
    university''.
        (8) In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton 
    stated, ``We will open the doors of education to all citizens, but 
    especially to girls and women * * *. We are doing all of these 
    things because we have seen that when women and girls have the 
    tools to stay healthy and the opportunity to contribute to their 
    families'' well-being, they flourish and so do the people around 
    them.
        (9) In February 2019, the White House launched the Women's 
    Global Development and Prosperity Initiative to advance women's 
    economic empowerment across the globe and reach more than 100,000 
    women.
        (10) The World Economic Forum ranks Pakistan the second lowest 
    among all countries in the world evaluated for gender equality. On 
    educational attainment for women, Pakistan is ranked the tenth 
    lowest.
        (11) In Pakistan, the rate of higher education enrollment 
    beyond high school for girls and women is just 9 percent as 
    reported by the World Bank. The global rate is 40 percent. Less 
    than 6 percent of women 25 and older in Pakistan attain a 
    bachelor's degree or equivalent as of 2016.
        (12) Factors such as poverty, early marriage, disability, 
    ethnicity, and religion can contribute to the lack of educational 
    opportunities for women in marginalized communities.
        (13) According to the World Bank, ``Higher education benefits 
    both individuals and society. Economic returns for college 
    graduates are the highest in the entire educational system--an 
    average 17 percent increase in earnings per year of schooling as 
    compared with 10 percent for primary school.''.
        (14) The United States provides critical foreign assistance to 
    Pakistan's education sector to improve access to and the quality of 
    basic and higher education. Since 2010, the United States Agency 
    for International Development (referred to in this Act as 
    ``USAID'') has awarded more than 6,000 scholarships for young women 
    to receive higher education in Pakistan.
        (15) The Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program administered 
    by USAID awards scholarships to academically talented, financially 
    needy Pakistani students from all regions, including female 
    students from rural areas of the country, to pursue bachelor's or 
    master's degrees at participating Pakistani universities.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
    (a) In General.--It is the sense of Congress that--
        (1) every individual should have the opportunity to pursue a 
    full cycle of primary, secondary, and higher education;
        (2) every individual, regardless of gender, socio-economic 
    status, ethnicity, or religion should have the opportunity to 
    pursue an education without fear of discrimination;
        (3) educational exchanges promote institutional linkages 
    between the United States and Pakistan; and
        (4) recipients of scholarships referred to in section 4 should 
    commit to improving their local communities.
    (b) Continued Support for Educational Initiatives in Pakistan.--
Congress encourages the Department of State and USAID to continue their 
support for initiatives led by the Government of Pakistan and civil 
society that promote education in Pakistan, especially education for 
women, in accordance with USAID's 2018 Education Policy.
SEC. 4. MERIT AND NEEDS-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM.
    (a) In General.--The USAID Administrator shall award at least 50 
percent of the number of scholarships under the Merit and Needs-Based 
Scholarship Program (referred to in this Act as the ``Program'') to 
women for each of the calendar years 2020 through 2022.
    (b) Limitations.--
        (1) Criteria.--The scholarships available under subsection (a) 
    may only be awarded in accordance with other scholarship 
    eligibility criteria already established by USAID.
        (2) Academic disciplines.--Scholarships authorized under 
    subsection (a) shall be awarded for a range of disciplines to 
    improve the employability of graduates and to meet the needs of the 
    scholarship recipients.
        (3) Other scholarships.--The USAID Administrator shall make 
    every effort to award 50 percent of the scholarships available 
    under the Program to Pakistani women.
    (c) Leveraging Investment.--The USAID Administrator shall, to the 
greatest extent practicable, consult with and leverage investments by 
the Pakistani private sector and Pakistani diaspora communities in the 
United States as part of USAID's greater effort to improve the quality 
of, expand access to, and ensure sustainability of education programs 
in Pakistan.
SEC. 5. ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING.
    (a) In General.--The USAID Administrator shall designate 
appropriate USAID officials to brief the appropriate congressional 
committees, not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this 
Act, and annually thereafter for the next 3 years, on the 
implementation of section 4.
    (b) Contents.--The briefing described in subsection (a) shall 
include, among other relevant information, for the most recently 
concluded fiscal year--
        (1) the total number of scholarships that were awarded through 
    the Program, including a breakdown by gender;
        (2) the disciplines of study chosen by the scholarship 
    recipients;
        (3) the percentage of the scholarships that were awarded to 
    students seeking a bachelor's degree or a master's degree, 
    respectively;
        (4) the percentage of scholarship recipients who voluntarily 
    dropped out of school or were involuntarily pushed out of the 
    program for failure to meet program requirements; and
        (5) the percentage of scholarship recipients who dropped out of 
    school due to retaliation for seeking an education, to the extent 
    that such information is available.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.