Mr. Eamonn Casey:

As Ms Kennedy pointed out, there was solid progress on access before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, owing to the pandemic's health implications and the social restrictions introduced by governments across the world, 1.5 billion children were put out of school across the world. When we hear about the percentage who will not be able to go back to school, we understand that as many as 20 million may not be able to do so, on top of hundreds of millions who were not able to go to school before the pandemic. Therefore, there are genuine problems with access. When children and youths get into a school, an important issue arises over quality. Certainly for girls, there is the core issue of getting into school. It is a matter of protection as much as education. The two really go hand in hand. Protection is to avoid early marriage, trafficking and child labour. Once the girls are in school, there is a genuine chance of quality education that will improve their circumstances.

Our faith-based organisations working in education are trying to tackle the supply-side barriers to access, especially girls' access — for instance, through improving schooling, improving sanitary supplies and facilities, tackling unsafe environments, as Ms Kennedy mentioned, and addressing the issue of distance to school, sometimes by providing bicycles or safe transport. Also, there are sometimes genuine challenges associated with persuading people of the value of going to school when their households are poor or when it is a challenge. It is therefore a matter of addressing attitudes to schooling, especially girls' schooling, and of ensuring a value is attached to it. Much of the time, there is a genuine outreach issue in persuading parents, communities, community elders and local politicians to support girls' education and in raising awareness of rights concerning sexual health and avoiding unplanned pregnancy. It is a question of holistic approaches to increasing household income so households do not regard the cost of educating people, especially girls, as insurmountable.

Despite the scale of the challenge, there really are positive stories of success — for instance, in northern Nigeria. Even in South Sudan and Somalia and in situations of conflict and fragility, there still can be stories of success if you stick at it for the long term and especially if you reach out to the furthest behind. In addition to NGOs and missionary organisations strengthening access and quality and supporting systems, they tend to have a particular focus on reaching out to the furthest behind. I am conscious that I may have used more than my share of time. One of the ways we have done what I am talking about in Misean Cara has been by focusing education efforts on post-conflict environments, slum environments and isolated rural areas, in particular, and also by exercising positive discrimination in how we support projects that offer educational supports to people with disability, girls, migrants, and internally and forcibly displaced people. These are some of the ways in which we are responding to strategic development goal 4.