Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Becomes Law In America
In October 2012, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban on her way home from school because she was actively making a case for access to education for women and girls despite objections from the Pakistani Taliban.
“On January 13th, the President signed into law the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act, which directs the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to award at least 50 percent of Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Programme scholarships to Pakistani women,” said a statement issued by the White House.
Earlier this month, the US Congress passed the proposed law and sent it to the White House for the president to sign.
The bill was first passed by the House of Representatives in March 2020 and then by the US Senate by a voice vote on January 1st.
The scholarship will be implemented under a Pakistan-based higher education scholarship program for the period 2020 to 2022. The scholarship will be available across a range of academic disciplines and in accordance with existing eligibility criteria.
The bill also requires USAID to consult with and leverage investments by the Pakistani private sector and Pakistani diaspora in the United States to improve and expand access to education programs in Pakistan.
Among other things, it requires USAID to brief Congress annually on the number of scholarships awarded under the program, including breakdowns by gender, discipline, and degree type; the percentage of recipients who were involuntarily pushed out of the program for failure to meet program requirements; and the percentage of recipients who dropped out of school, including due to retaliation for seeking education.
In 2013, the United Nations had declared July 12th as “Malala Day” — a global day of support for and recognition of her bravery and courage in promoting women’s education.
During the process of discussion over the Act, the Congress found that more than 1,000,000 people around the world have signed the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education petition calling on the Government of Pakistan to enroll every boy and girl in primary school. And that the Pakistani civil society organizations collected almost 2,000,000 signatures from Pakistanis on a petition dedicated to Malala Yousafzai’s cause of education for all.
