[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4508 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 4508

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


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 26, 2019

  Mr. Jeffries (for himself and Mrs. Wagner) introduced the following 
      bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
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 twelve years of free, safe, and quality education for 
        all girls. Completion of a full twelve-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) 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.''.
            (13) 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.
            (14) 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, 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.
                                 <all>