UK Scraps £45m Programme to Keep 1 Million Girls in School
· 4 min read
The British government has cancelled a major higher education programme aimed at keeping 1 million girls in school across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, just two years after it was announced. The move has triggered concern among politicians and international development experts who warn it undermines the UK's stated commitment to women and girls.
The scheme, called Strengthening Higher Education for Female Empowerment (SHEFE), was unveiled with fanfare two years ago by the outgoing Conservative government. Backed by a £45m budget, it was designed to increase access to higher education for 1 million students worldwide. Its tender has now been withdrawn, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) confirmed.
A reversal of stated priorities
The decision appears to conflict with recent statements from the government. In May, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper emphasised her commitment to women and girls, describing them as a priority at the FCDO and saying she was "determined to work across borders to ensure women's safety is a worldwide priority."
Bambos Charalambous, the Labour MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on global education, said he was alarmed. "I'm alarmed that a flagship higher education programme designed to empower women and girls and help them achieve their potential appears to have been scrapped because of the aid cuts," he said.
He added that the FCDO had previously acknowledged how such partnerships can transform lives while also benefiting institutions in the UK. "It is vital to start thinking now about how to build back from the aid cuts to save similar projects," he said.
Why higher education matters
The programme was designed in part because girls who benefit from higher education are up to six times less likely to marry as children and are less likely to experience violence from a partner. Women with advanced levels of learning also tend to increase their earnings.
Development and education workers argued that scrapping SHEFE was the latest in a series of decisions eroding the UK's professed commitment to women and girls. The Home Office has also blocked new study visas for applicants from Afghanistan, Sudan, Myanmar and Cameroon, meaning many women whose educational opportunities were already restricted at home will miss out. British universities earn significant income from foreign students, who pay far higher fees than UK-born students.
Joseph Nhan-O'Reilly, co-founder of the International Parliamentary Network for Education, was sharply critical. "The government talks up its commitment to women and girls but at every turn it denies the world's most marginalised girls the thing that everyone agrees has the biggest impact on their lives and that of their communities: access to higher education," he said.
Part of a wider pattern of cuts
Earlier this year, the FCDO cancelled the tender for its planned Education for All programme in South Sudan, according to Nhan-O'Reilly. The £150m scheme had been designed to support the education of girls and children with disabilities in one of the world's poorest countries, which has one of the highest rates of children out of education and the world's fourth-lowest literacy rate.
Last year, Charalambous reported that a UK programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which had helped tens of thousands of girls attend school for the first time, was being abandoned. Educational work was also cut in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and the FCDO Girls' Education Department lost 51% of its funding.
A spokesperson at Bond, a UK network for organisations working in international development and humanitarian aid, warned of the consequences. "Any cuts to programmes that support women and girls, including through education, threaten to reverse hard-won progress on ending gender-based violence and exploitation, and advancing gender equality worldwide," they said, noting that polling by More in Common found most of the UK public wanted such safety programmes shielded from aid cuts.
Global ripple effects
Analysis by Unicef projects that international aid to education will fall by $3.2bn (£2.4bn) by 2026 — a 24% drop. It estimates that 6 million more children risk being out of school by the end of the year, with 30% of them in humanitarian settings, equivalent to emptying every primary school in Germany and Italy combined.
The UK had previously been a champion of global education, Nhan-O'Reilly said, and cuts announced last year closely followed those in the US. "These cuts can't be seen on their own; they've set the tone and influenced the posture and level of commitment from many other donors," he said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced last year that the UK aid budget would be cut from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027 — its lowest level since records began. The UN target is 0.7%, a level former Conservative prime minister David Cameron pledged to reach in 2012 despite opposition within his own party. The 2025 cut reversed Labour manifesto pledges and led to the resignation of Anneliese Dodds, then international development minister.
An FCDO spokesperson said the cuts were made to fund higher defence spending. "National security is the first duty of this government," they said. "This does not mean stepping back from our values — protecting women and girls is now a Foreign Office priority … Funding to tackle violence against women and girls is protected this year." As donor budgets shrink worldwide, the future of girls' education hangs in the balance — what do you think should be protected? Share this article and join the conversation.
