Oprah's academy: Why educating girls pays off more

Governments and international agencies have recognized this, and are working towards solutions. The UN Millennium Development Goals call for both gender equity and universal primary education by 2015. Many African governments have recently eliminated primary school fees, which have hampered girls' enrollment.

Now, the challenge is to secure long-term funding, to hire and train enough teachers to manage millions of new students, and to make sure educational quality goes along with access, researchers and aid groups say. Advocates are also pushing for free secondary education, which they say will further increase girls' literacy.

David Archer, the head of international education for ActionAid, a nonprofit development group, says he is seeing a new interest in global education from private philanthropies, as well. Over the past year or so, he says, some two dozen American philanthropies have started international education projects. Last month, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced a $60 million effort to improve education in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, set on 52 manicured acres in the village of Henley-on-Klip, has state-of-the-art classrooms and laboratories, a 600-seat theater, a library, beauty salon, yoga studio, and Oprah-decorated dorm rooms. This year, 152 seventh and eighth graders will attend the school; next year, Winfrey says, it will hold 450 students in Grades 7 to 12.

Some education advocates have criticized Winfrey's academy as a "vanity project," and say her $40 million could have been more widely and smartly distributed, while others say that she's managed to raise more popular attention than has any NGO.

"This school is ... shining a spotlight on girls' education in Africa," says Mr. Sperling, who also served as national economic adviser to President Clinton. "Five years from now, when people see some of these young women on her show just blowing you away, it is going to be a powerful symbol of what the potential of the poorest girls in Africa really is with the same type of educational opportunities that so many of us were lucky enough to be born into."

Mr. Archer, however, cringes at Winfrey's project. "I felt very uncomfortable about it," he says. "It's something where she can have direct control and direct engagement, rather than doing the more important and less personalized work. That same amount of money could improve the quality of schools no end throughout entire districts and provinces."

But Winfrey and her supporters defend her targeted largess. "I think the government has to be very focused on spreading resources evenly," says Sperling. "But I think there's nothing wrong, and a lot right, with a private individual saying, 'I want to do something terrific to give some of the most underprivileged girls in the world the opportunity to be leaders.' You need both."

The girls who attend her academy, Winfrey says, will become Africa's next leaders. "I know that this Academy will change the trajectory of these girls' lives," Winfrey said in a statement this week. "They will excel and pass their excellence on to their families, their nation, and our world."

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