[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 116 (Monday, September 18, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9684-S9685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. CLINTON:
  S. 3909. A bill to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to 
provide assistance for developing countries to promote quality basic 
education and to establish the achievement of universal basic education 
in all developing countries as an objective of United States foreign 
assistance policy, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations.
  Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, for several years now, I have been 
working to raise the profile of the issue of the more than 100 million 
children around the world who are out of school.
  An April 2004 report authored by Barbara Herz and Gene Sperling, in 
conjunction with the Center on Universal Education at the Council on 
Foreign Relations, clearly demonstrated in striking fashion the 
overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence on the need to invest in 
girls' education. It catalogs literally hundreds of rigorous studies on 
the tangible economic, social, and political gains that come from 
giving a girl the opportunity to learn. Let me highlight a few of the 
report's findings: A single year of primary education correlates with a 
10-20

[[Page S9685]]

percent increase in women's wages later in life. Academic studies find 
the return to a year of secondary education is even higher--in the 15 
to 25 percent range.
  An extra year of a woman's education has been shown to reduce the 
risk that her children will die in infancy by 5 to 10 percent.
  Education offers what the World Bank has referred to as a window of 
hope in helping prevent the spread of AIDS among today's children. A 
recent study of a school-based AIDS education program in Uganda found a 
75 percent reduction in the likelihood that children would be sexually 
active in their last year of primary school.
  Girls' education is the best single policy for reducing fertility and 
therefore achieving sustainable families, according to a recent survey 
of the academic literature. In Brazil, for example, illiterate mothers 
have an average of 6 children while literate mothers choose to have 
less than 3 children, and are better able to care for an invest in 
their children's well-being.
  A study of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa found that from 1960 to 
1992, more equal education between men and women could have led to 
nearly 1 percent higher annual per capita GDP growth.
  The report also documents in extensive detail what I have seen in 
many countries--that the most effective way to reach the goal of 
getting all girls in school is by encouraging countries to make a firm 
commitment to universal basic education for all children. When 
countries devise and adopt specific targeted strategies to address the 
unique obstacles girls face, they improve the reach and quality of 
education for all children, both girls and boys.
  Two years ago, Representative Nita Lowey and I introduced the 
Education for All Act, legislation that I am proud to reintroduce 
today. This bill would enable us to increase our spending on global 
education initiatives in order to help millions of children around the 
world have the opportunity to receive an education.
  At the time we originally introduced this bill, we may have seemed 
like we were dreamers to expect a G8 nation like ours to take such a 
bold step on education in Africa and the rest of the developing world.
  Yet earlier this year we saw the UK put forward $15 billion over the 
next 10 years. This means that the UK, a nation with an economy about 
one-sixth our size, will be spending three times more than the U.S. to 
ensure that every boy--and particularly every girl--has a chance for a 
free education.
  I know that our current commitment does not represent the generous 
heart or the wise minds of the American people. And they know that 
education--particularly the education of girls--is the best investment 
we can make to reducing global poverty; they know that education is our 
best social vaccine against the spread of HIV/AIDS.
  There is no greater proof of such big hearts and wise minds as the 
young people from all over the United States, as well as around the 
world whom I have met, and who have shared with me their commitment to 
advocate for children thousands of miles away who they still consider 
to be their friends--their brothers and sisters who deserve the 
opportunity to learn.
  I am proud to stand with these children in support of their friends 
around the world. They understand that in order to make our world more 
peaceful and secure in the long term, girls and boys must be given the 
chance to read, to write, and to get a basic education.
  Education has to be the foundation of any strategy to secure peace 
and prosperity around the world, because when children can reach their 
potential, we are all better for it, and this bill will help provide a 
strong foundation for our efforts to help children around the world.

                          ____________________