Education Is Still One of the Most Powerful
Things We Can Give Women

International Women’s Day this year is built around a theme that is worth sitting with. Give to Gain. The idea that investing in women does not take something away from anyone else. It creates something better for everyone.

It is a simple idea. It is also one that took a very long time to take hold.

For most of recorded history, education was not something women were expected to access. In many parts of the world it was actively denied to them. The assumption, held for centuries and enforced through law, social structure and culture, was that learning was not for women. That knowledge, opportunity and the professional credibility that comes with qualification belonged to someone else.

That assumption has been dismantled piece by piece, generation by generation, by women who pushed back against it and by the slow, imperfect progress of societies that eventually recognised what they were losing by excluding half their population from education.

The progress is real. Women now make up the majority of university graduates in the UK. Girls consistently outperform boys at GCSE and A Level. Women are leading organisations, governments, research institutions and businesses in ways that would have been unthinkable a century ago. That is worth acknowledging.

But the distance between progress and equality is still significant. Women still disproportionately carry the weight of caring responsibilities, which affects when and how they are able to study. Returning to education after having children, managing a career alongside family commitments or trying to retrain while the rest of life continues to make demands is not a straightforward thing. Flexibility in education is not a nice to have for a lot of women. It is the difference between accessing learning and being locked out of it.

This is something we think about at Educationwise. Our courses are delivered fully online and designed to fit around your life, not the other way around. Whether you are working, raising a family or managing responsibilities that do not disappear because you have decided to study, our programmes are built to accommodate that reality. No fixed tutoring times, no requirement to be in a particular place at a particular time, no assumption that learning can only happen when everything else is taken care of.

We also believe that the organisations shaping education should reflect the people they serve. We are proud to be led by our CEO Judith Allen, whose leadership has been central to where Educationwise is today. Having women in leadership within education is not just symbolically important. It shapes the decisions that get made, the priorities that get set and the culture that takes hold. It matters in practice, not just in principle.

International Women’s Day is a moment to recognise how far things have come and to be honest about how far there is still to go. Education sits at the centre of both of those things. It has historically been the thing women were denied and it remains one of the most powerful tools available for changing what is possible.

When women can access learning on their own terms, at their own pace, around the lives they are actually living, the impact goes well beyond the individual. It reaches families, workplaces and communities. That is what Give to Gain looks like in practice.

We are committed to making sure that access is as open and as real as possible for every learner we work with.