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DESPITE slow but
significant progress achieved in the 1990s, girls continue to
face “sharp discrimination in access to schooling” in a
majority of developing countries, a global report says.
Gender parity in education
remains a distant prospect in 54 countries including 16
countries in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Pakistan and India,
says the latest Education For All Global Monitoring Report*,
the most comprehensive survey of education trends worldwide.
In China, the most populous country in the world, boys will
continue to outnumber girls in secondary schools for many
years to come.
UNESCO DG Reax
“While not a complete surprise, these results are obviously a
cause for deep concern,” says Koïchiro Matsuura,
Director-General of UNESCO. “Gender parity in education is a
priority not only because inequality is a major infringement
of fundamental human rights but because it represents an
important obstacle to social and economic development.”
Gender equality in education is one of the six goals** of the
Education For All programme endorsed by 164 governments at the
World Education Forum, in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000. As a
first step to achieving equality, they set the target of 2005
to achieve gender parity (equal enrolment of boys and girls)
in primary and secondary education.
The report measures efforts being made in all parts of the
world to enroll more girls in school. In the decade to 2000,
the number of girls in primary school increased faster than
that of boys, with the global Gender Parity Index (GPI) rising
from 0.89 to 0.93 (a GPI of 1 indicates parity between the
sexes). But 57% of the estimated 104 million primary-age
children out of school worldwide are girls, which suggests
that discrimination remains a pressing problem. Of the 128
countries for which data for the reference year 2000 is
available, 52 have already achieved gender parity or will have
done so by 2005 at primary and secondary level.
Poorest Performance
Amongst the poorest performers in terms of girls’ access to
primary school, according to the Report, are Chad with a GPI
of 0.63, Yemen (0.63), Guinea-Bissau (0.67), Benin (0.68),
Niger (0.68), Ethiopia (0.69), Central African Republic
(0.69), Burkina Faso (0.71), Guinea (0.72), Mali (0.72), and
Liberia (0.73). Girls’ enrolment in these countries is only
three quarters that of boys. India, with a GPI of 0.83 at
primary level, is only slightly ahead.
While the situation globally leaves girls at a disadvantage,
the Report points out that because too many boys do not finish
secondary education, the balance has tipped in favour of girls
at this level in several countries including Bangladesh
(1.05), Denmark (1.05), Mexico (1.05), New Zealand (1.06),
Bahrain (1.07), Iceland (1.07) Russian Federation (1.07),
Trinidad and Tobago (1.07) Colombia (1.10), Philippines
(1.10), Malaysia (1.11), United Arab Emirates (1.12), United
Kingdom (1.17), Suriname (1.18) and Sweden (1.26) (see table 7
in the Statistical Annex of the Report).
A high pay off
“Investing in the education of girls has a high pay off,” says
Christopher Colclough, the director of the Global Monitoring
Report. “Education helps to increase (womens’) productivity to
a significant extent, thereby adding to household incomes and
reducing poverty. It also increases personal and social
well-being. When parents, in particular mothers, are educated,
their children – both boys and girls – will be healthier,
better nourished and have a greater chance of going to school
and doing well there. Investing in educating girls now is one
of the best ways of ensuring that future generations will be
educated.”
Child Labour
The need to supplement family income is one of the main
reasons why children do not attend classes, says the Report.
According to the most recent estimates “18 percent of children
aged 5-14 are economically active, amounting to some 211
million children, about half of whom are girls.” In addition,
many more millions of children are involved in domestic labour,
sometimes at great cost to their educational participation or
success. “A much larger proportion of these children are girls
than boys,” says Colclough.
Cost is another major obstacle: in spite of the human rights
instruments which commit states to free and compulsory
education at primary level, school fees continue to be levied
in at least 101 countries, in the form of tuition fees, the
cost of books, compulsory school uniforms, and community
contributions. In six African countries, states the Report,
“parents were found to contribute almost one third of the
total annual costs of primary schooling.”
There are also numerous other barriers to girls’ education
including early marriage, HIV/AIDS, conflict, and violence in
schools. In Nepal, for example, 40 percent of girls are
married by the time they are 15. In Southern Africa and the
Caribbean, girls between 15 and 19 are infected by HIV/AIDS at
rates four to seven times higher than boys, “a disparity
linked to widespread exploitation, sexual abuse and
discriminatory practices,” says the Report.
Women n' Children
It has been estimated that up to 100,000 girls directly
participated in conflicts in at least 30 countries during the
1990s, as fighters, cooks, porters, spies, servants and sex
slaves, and the vast majority of the world’s estimated 25
million internally displaced persons are women and children.
The Report cites a recent study from South Africa which shows
that the threat of violence at school is “one of the most
significant challenges to learning” there.
Classroom practices can also
influence girls’ participation rates in education, states the
Report, referring to a study of countries in sub-Saharan
Africa which shows that girls were in general more involved
than boys in such tasks as cleaning floors and fetching water.
In many countries, the extremely low number of women teachers,
who could serve as role models for girls, is another
disadvantage.
In India, “almost 90 percent
of single teacher schools, which account for at least 20
percent of all schools, are staffed by men and 72 percent of
two-teacher schools have no women teachers.”
Gender Parity
The Report stresses that gender parity does not mean gender
equality. It points to those countries, notably in Europe,
Latin America and Asia, where, it says, boys’ underachievement
in the educational arena has not yet resulted in their falling
behind in the economic and political spheres. Women may have
to work harder and do better than men, it concludes, “if they
are to be successful in competition for jobs, equal pay and
decision-making positions.”
This year’s Report also includes an EFA Development Index,
providing an overall view of the progress countries are making
towards the four Dakar goals that can be most easily measured:
universal primary education, adult literacy, quality of
education (survival to grade 5) and gender parity. This first
index presents data for 94 countries for the year 2000,
excluding most of the OECD Member States, but including
between 50 percent and 80 percent of the countries in
sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab States, South and West Asia and
Latin America and the Caribbean.
Of these countries, only 16
– most of which are in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin
America and the Caribbean - have either achieved or are close
to achieving the four goals listed above, having an EDI of
0.95 or higher. Forty-two countries, all in developing
regions, have EDI values of between 0.80 and 0.94, which puts
them within reach of the EFA goals provided they keep up the
momentum.
Another 36 countries have
EDI values lower than 0.80, which means they are a long way
from meeting the Dakar objectives. Twenty-two of these lowest
EDI countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, but they also include
Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
A Free View
The Education for All Global Monitoring Report is prepared by
an independent international team based at UNESCO Headquarters
in Paris (France). It is part of the follow-up to the Dakar
World Education Forum, and benefits from the advice of an
international editorial board. It is funded by UNESCO and a
number of bilateral agencies.
* “EFA Global Monitoring
Report 2003/4, Gender and Education for All, The Leap to
Equality”. UNESCO Publishing, France, 2003
** More than 160 countries attending the World Education Forum
committed themselves to achieving the following goals by 2015:
· Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care
and disadvantaged children
· Universal primary education
· Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and
adults are met through equitable access to appropriate
learning and life skills programmes
· Achieving a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult
literacy
· Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary
education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education
by 2015
· Improving all aspects of the quality of education.
The Report is accessible online at:
www.efareport.unesco.org
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