UK Axes Overseas Education Project for Women and Girls After Two Years

A significant higher education program designed to support 1 million girls across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East has been canceled by the British government, just two years after its announcement. The scheme, known as Strengthening Higher Education for Female Empowerment (SHEFE), was launched with considerable fanfare by the outgoing Conservative government and had a budget of £45 million.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has withdrawn the tender for the program. This move comes despite recent statements from Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper emphasizing her commitment to women and girls as a priority for the FCDO. Cooper had declared her determination to work across borders to make women's safety a worldwide priority.

Lawmakers have expressed alarm over the cancellation. Bambos Charalambous, the Labour MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on global education, stated his concern that the flagship program, intended to empower women and girls, appears to have been scrapped due to aid cuts. He stressed the importance of rebuilding from these cuts to save similar projects, noting that such partnerships benefit both the students and British institutions.

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I’m alarmed that a flagship higher education programme designed to empower women and girls and help them achieve their potential appears to have been scrapped because of the aid cuts.

International development and education sector professionals claim this decision severely undermines the UK's stated commitment to women and girls. They point to additional Home Office decisions blocking study visas for individuals from Afghanistan, Sudan, Myanmar, and Cameroon, which will prevent many women with limited educational opportunities in their home countries from pursuing studies abroad. Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly, co-founder of the International Parliamentary Network for Education, criticized the government's actions, stating that while it talks up its commitment to women and girls, it denies marginalized girls access to higher education, which is widely agreed to have the biggest impact on their lives and communities.

Earlier this year, the FCDO also canceled the tender for its planned Education for All program in South Sudan, a £150 million scheme aimed at supporting the education of girls and children with disabilities in a country facing extreme poverty and low literacy rates. The program was designed with the understanding that girls benefiting from higher education are significantly less likely to marry as children and experience partner violence, while also increasing their earning potential.

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The government talks up its commitment to women and girls but at every turn it denies the world’s most marginalised girls the thing that everyone agrees has the biggest impact on their lives and that of their communities: access to higher education.