Access to education: ‘We have a silent epidemic on our hands’

It was just like any other gloomy weekday when my father, Christie Hennessy, left school at age 11. But the impacts of his educational poverty would last a lifetime.

Unbeknownst to him, or anyone around him at that time, he was afflicted by dyslexia so severe that without the right learning support he spent the rest of his life unable to read or write. (Ironically, my mother’s career was just that - supporting neuro-diverse and special needs students at school).

I saw firsthand what illiteracy really means day to day, and it is hard for most people to even imagine. No bus timetables. No road signs. No cooking instructions. No post. No menus. In sum, no true independence to navigate a world full of words and numbers.

Despite his rise to stardom, Christie never felt like he had an equal voice. He walked around feeling “less than”. I managed him as a recording artist to help him find the public voice he was denied. And to save him from the perceived shame of having to share what was effectively a disability due to lack of educational care. As a parent, he secretly feared that me and my sister would not be able to learn anything in school and that we would “take after him” in some way.

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Silent epidemic

That is why I am truly alarmed that lack of access to education, especially for girls, has become a silent epidemic in the world’s poorest countries.

These aspiring doctors, creatives, scientists and engineers, having been abandoned by the possibility of their learning practice at such young ages, are unlikely to ever be freed from the chains my dad managed to escape. And so, it continues to the next generation.

Today, Irish preschoolers will put on their oversized, glittery backpacks with pride and return to school for the first time in months. Every parent around the country is confronted with the reality of what their child has missed out on and the impacts, though different for every child, are stark to witness.

Turn those months into years, and you have a profound emergency on your hands.

Even before the pandemic, an estimated 130 million girls worldwide were being denied their right to go to school, facing multiple barriers to education, whether distance to school, harmful cultural norms and practices, gender-based violence or early marriage. This crisis has only intensified.

So much so that in the five minutes it might take you to read this article, more than 100 girls under age 18 will be married off. Thirty girls will deliver children of their own, at grave risk to mother and child. In both scenarios these girls may never enter a classroom again.

Transformation

Christie’s own greatest drive for equal education came when he went to Kenya and saw for himself the high levels of FGM and lack of schooling, especially for children living in remote areas. He came back surer than ever that education was the key to transformation.

If we prioritise aid to education, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to get back on track and ensure the impacts of Covid on girls’ education don’t last a lifetime. The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is the largest and only global fund dedicated solely to education and is working to do exactly that; transforming education systems so every girl and boy can get the quality education they need to unlock their full potential and contribute to building a better world.

GPE is currently calling on world leaders to “Raise Your Hand” and fund education in up to 90 countries and territories, which are home to 1 billion children.

Ireland has an admirable legacy of generosity for countries in need and has joined with GPE to support education for the most marginalised since 2006. They’ve also used their diplomatic heft to draw attention to the importance of girls’ education at the UN and other global forums. During GPE’s last financing campaign in 2018, Ireland doubled their previous commitment. If there was ever time to do the same again, it really has to be now.

Power

That is why myself and my brother (producer Tim Ross) teamed up with multi-award-winning legend Gemma Hayes to raise awareness of the power of girls' education. The original track Raise Her Up (co-written with Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter Jamie Lawson) is being released today for International Women's Day to make the case for foreign investment into girls' education globally.

Tomorrow, Gemma and I will meet with Minister Colm Brophy in the hopes of convincing the Irish Government to continue their leadership and step up their pledge ahead of the UK-Kenya hosted Global Education Summit in July.

If world leaders fail to act now, the impacts will last for decades to come. It is a simple case of pay now or pay later. But the key difference is that by financing education today, millions of Euros, millions of lives and millions of futures will be saved.

[ Raise Her Up ]