[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4508 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 4508
To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani women under
the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 26, 2019
Mr. Jeffries (for himself and Mrs. Wagner) introduced the following
bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani women under
the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) In late 2008, Malala Yousafzai began making the case
for access to education for women and girls despite objections
from the Pakistani Taliban. On October 9, 2012, Malala was shot
in the head by Pakistani Taliban on her way home from school.
(2) In 2013, Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin
Yousafzai co-founded the Malala Fund. The Malala Fund works to
secure twelve years of free, safe, and quality education for
all girls. Completion of a full twelve-year cycle of primary
and secondary education ensures a pipeline of girls able to
pursue higher education.
(3) On July 12, 2013, Malala delivered a speech before the
United Nations General Assembly calling for expanded access to
education for women and girls across the globe. She said,
``[L]et us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy,
poverty, and terrorism. Let us pick up our books and our pens.
They are the most powerful weapons . . . Education is the only
solution.''.
(4) On October 10, 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the co-
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her ``struggle against
the suppression of children and young people and for the right
of all children to education''.
(5) According to the United Nations 2016 Global Education
Monitoring Report, more than 130 million girls worldwide are
out of school. 15 million girls of primary-school age will
never enter a classroom. As of 2016, at least 500 million adult
women across the globe are illiterate.
(6) According to the World Bank, ``Girls' education is a
strategic development priority. Better educated women tend to
be healthier, participate more in the formal labor market, earn
higher incomes, . . . marry at a later age, and enable better
health care and education for their children, should they
choose to become mothers. All these factors combined can help
lift households, communities, and nations out of poverty.''.
(7) In 2015, all United Nations Member States, including
the United States, adopted quality education, including access
to higher education, and gender equality as sustainable
development goals to be attained by 2030. One of the education
goal targets is to ``ensure equal access for all women and men
to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary
education, including university''.
(8) In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton stated, ``We will open the doors of education to all
citizens, but especially to girls and women . . . We are doing
all of these things because we have seen that when women and
girls have the tools to stay healthy and the opportunity to
contribute to their families'' well-being, they flourish and so
do the people around them.
(9) In February 2019, the White House launched the Women's
Global Development and Prosperity Initiative to advance women's
economic empowerment across the globe and reach more than
100,000 women.
(10) The World Economic Forum ranks Pakistan the second
lowest among all countries in the world evaluated for gender
equality. On educational attainment for women, Pakistan is
ranked the tenth lowest.
(11) In Pakistan, the rate of higher education enrollment
beyond high school for girls and women is just 9 percent as
reported by the World Bank. The global rate is 40 percent. Less
than 6 percent of women 25 and older in Pakistan attain a
bachelor's degree or equivalent as of 2016.
(12) According to the World Bank, ``Higher education
benefits both individuals and society. Economic returns for
college graduates are the highest in the entire educational
system--an average 17 percent increase in earnings per year of
schooling as compared with 10 percent for primary school.''.
(13) The United States provides critical foreign assistance
to Pakistan's education sector to improve access to and the
quality of basic and higher education. Since 2010, the United
States Agency for International Development (referred to in
this Act as ``USAID'') has awarded more than 6,000 scholarships
for young women to receive higher education in Pakistan.
(14) The Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program
administered by USAID awards scholarships to academically
talented, financially needy Pakistani students from all
regions, including female students from rural areas of the
country, to pursue bachelor's or master's degrees at
participating Pakistani universities.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
(a) In General.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) every individual should have the opportunity to pursue
a full cycle of primary, secondary, and higher education;
(2) every individual, regardless of gender, should have the
opportunity to pursue an education without fear of
discrimination;
(3) educational exchanges promote institutional linkages
between the United States and Pakistan; and
(4) recipients of scholarships referred to in section 4
should commit to improving their local communities.
(b) Continued Support for Educational Initiatives in Pakistan.--
Congress encourages the Department of State and USAID to continue their
support for initiatives led by the Government of Pakistan and civil
society that promote education in Pakistan, especially education for
women, in accordance with USAID's 2018 Education Policy.
SEC. 4. MERIT AND NEEDS-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM.
(a) In General.--The USAID Administrator shall award at least 50
percent of the number of scholarships under the Merit and Needs-Based
Scholarship Program (referred to in this Act as the ``Program'') to
women for each of the calendar years 2020 through 2022.
(b) Limitations.--
(1) Criteria.--The scholarships available under subsection
(a) may only be awarded in accordance with other scholarship
eligibility criteria already established by USAID.
(2) Academic disciplines.--Scholarships authorized under
subsection (a) shall be awarded for a range of disciplines to
improve the employability of graduates and to meet the needs of
the scholarship recipients.
(3) Other scholarships.--The USAID Administrator shall make
every effort to award 50 percent of the scholarships available
under the Program to Pakistani women.
(c) Leveraging Investment.--The USAID Administrator shall, to the
greatest extent practicable, consult with and leverage investments by
the Pakistani private sector and Pakistani diaspora communities in the
United States as part of USAID's greater effort to improve the quality
of, expand access to, and ensure sustainability of education programs
in Pakistan.
SEC. 5. ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING.
(a) In General.--The USAID Administrator shall designate
appropriate USAID officials to brief the appropriate congressional
committees, not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this
Act, and annually thereafter for the next 3 years, on the
implementation of section 4.
(b) Contents.--The briefing described in subsection (a) shall
include, among other relevant information, for the most recently
concluded fiscal year--
(1) the total number of scholarships that were awarded
through the Program, including a breakdown by gender;
(2) the disciplines of study chosen by the scholarship
recipients;
(3) the percentage of the scholarships that were awarded to
students seeking a bachelor's degree or a master's degree,
respectively;
(4) the percentage of scholarship recipients who
voluntarily dropped out of school or were involuntarily pushed
out of the program for failure to meet program requirements;
and
(5) the percentage of scholarship recipients who dropped
out of school due to retaliation for seeking an education, to
the extent that such information is available.
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