"Few doubt that investing in girls' education yields high economic returns. But with 60 million girls out of school, are development advocates pushing on a string? Lewis and Lockheed unveil a big part of the problem: most of these girls come from their own societies' excluded and minority groups. INEXCUSABLE ABSENCE explains why and what can be done. It is a must-read for students and practitioners of development." --Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University and World Bank chief economist "This is a very welcome report on an extraordinarily important problem, and I hope it will receive the attention it richly deserves." --Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate and Lamont University Professor of Economics and Philosophy "INEXCUSABLE ABSENCE is an extremely useful volume for those who seek to promote gender equality and a major contribution to the field of education policy." --Geeta Rao Gupta, President, International Center for Research on Women

Girls' education, indisputably crucial to development, has received a lot of attention--but surprisingly little hardheaded analysis to inform practical policy solutions. In Inexcusable Absence, Maureen Lewis and Marlaine Lockheed propose new strategies for reaching the 70 percent of out-of-school girls who are "doubly disadvantaged" by their ethnicity, language, or other factors. The book will be an important tool for policymakers, informing interventions that can make a profound impact on the lives of the 60 million out-of-school girls.