As the world prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day on March 8, a new report details the progress and challenges girls face in getting an education.
The report – from the Education for All Fast Track Initiative – highlights the importance of girls’ education for economic(经济的) and social development. It follows progress in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritania, Mozambique and Niger.
Prema Clarke, author of Fast-tracking Girls’ Education, says, “Progress for girls’ education is that they can leave their homes, leave their families and come to a place to study and to learn.  And that’s a big achievement because otherwise these girls have to stay at home, looking after their brothers and sisters, doing the cooking or doing the cleaning.”
She says progress toward the Millennium Development Goals and those of Education for All “is allowing and enabling girls and forcing countries to look at this issue(问题) and to ensure that interventions (干预) help girls attend school.”
Benefits
Improving education for girls brings many benefits, says Clarke. “It means that girls can then enter the workforce. They can look after their own families much more effectively. They can prevent child death rate. They can educate their own girl children when they begin to expand their own families.” Studies show that having an educated female population helps to improve a country’s health and economic well-being.
Warnings
The report says, “In developing countries, too many girls are not in school, and many girls face continuing health risks and danger just walking to class.”
“Especially in the fragile and post-conflict countries and in many of the African countries, this is a real issue,” she says. Till now, the interventions have been so focused on providing schooling and providing teachers, etc. And now I think there is much more expanded focus on looking at specific（特定的）communities of girls within at-risk groups that now need much more specific attention and much more creative solutions(解决方法) to help them attend school.”
The underlined word “highlights” in Paragraph 2 probably means ________.

A．shows

B．stresses

C．remarks

D．improves

According to Clarke, improving education can provide girls with all the opportunities EXCEPT _______.

A．to educate their own girl children	B．to prevent child death rate
C．to enter the workforce	D．to study abroad

This passage is intended to _____.

A．promote the progress in girls’ education

B．talk about the benefits of improving girls’ education

C．give some information about the education girls are facing

D．sing high praise for the girls’ education

It can be inferred from the passage that _______.

A．the girls’ educational situation in developing countries is still serious

B．girls were free to go wherever they wanted to in the past

C．there are enough teachers in most of the African countries

D．International Women’s Day was first celebrated on March 8 in 1900

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