evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Haydi Kızlar Okula! ('Girls, Let's Go to School!') — Turkey's National Girls' Education Campaign

Türkiye · Siirt · See the Türkiye profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 29% 82/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

UNICEF and Turkey's education ministry launched Haydi Kızlar Okula! in 2003 to close a 7-point primary-enrolment gender gap, starting in 10 south-eastern provinces. It enrolled over 200,000 additional girls, though yearly gains fell as it scaled nationwide.

200,000+
Additional girls enrolled, main campaign phase (2003-2007)
+5.8%
First-year enrolment rise, ten pilot provinces (2003-2004)

Details

Maturity
Discontinued
Promoter
UNICEF Türkiye / Turkish Ministry of National Education
Period
2003–2007 (piloted in 10 provinces, then scaled nationwide)
Keywords
education, gender parity, primary schooling

Context

In June 2003, UNICEF and Turkey's Ministry of National Education launched Haydi Kızlar Okula! to close a nationwide primary-school gender gap of about 7 percentage points, starting in ten south-eastern and eastern Anatolian provinces before scaling nationwide.

Results

Girls' enrolment rose by an average of 5.8% across the ten pilot provinces in the first year, with the largest gains in Siirt (~19%). UNICEF reports over 200,000 additional girls enrolled in primary school during the campaign's main phase, though annual new-enrolment fell year on year nationally (from ~73,000 in 2004 to ~16,000 by 2007) as the most reachable girls were registered first.

Conclusions

Academic reviews credit the campaign with narrowing but not eliminating the gender gap, noting persistent regional and rural disparities, especially in mountainous south-eastern areas, that a single national campaign could not fully resolve.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
mobile registration teams, community and religious leaders for mobilisation

Conditions for success

  • door-to-door outreach and media campaigns targeting highest-gap provinces first
  • community mobilisation with local and religious leaders

Common failure modes

  • annual new-enrolment gains declined as easiest-to-reach girls were registered first

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful