WUNRN
Direct Link to Full 277-Page UNESCO
Report:
_____________________________________________________________
EDUCATION FOR GIRLS - UNESCO REPORT
URGES
PUSH TO END GENDER DISPARITIES IN
EDUCATION
17 September 2010 – Girls and
boys in only 85 countries will have equal access to primary and secondary
education by 2015 if present trends continue, according to a new United Nations
report, which calls for greater efforts to reduce gender disparities in
education.
The
annual edition of the Global Education Digest, published by the UN Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), adds that 72
countries are not likely to reach the goal of gender parity in education by
2015 – one of six education goals set by world leaders gathered at the World
Education Forum in
“This
new data tells us that we need to reaffirm our commitment to education and
gender equality,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
“The
advances made in improving girls’ and women’s access to education and training
over the past decades risk being undermined by reductions in international aid
and national investments as the world struggles to cope with inter-locking
crises. Yet, we all know that compromising the education of girls and women
will only lead to more vulnerability and reinforce the vicious cycle of
poverty.”
The
report comes on the eve of the UN summit that begins on Monday in
Among
its other findings, the report says that worldwide, girls are more likely to
never enter primary school than boys. In South and
Meanwhile,
in sub-Saharan
At
the national level, the chances of starting primary school for boys are at
least 10 per cent greater than those for girls in Afghanistan, Benin, Cameroon,
the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the Dominican
Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea,
Tuvalu and Yemen.
“Girls
in these countries are often excluded entirely from education,” noted UNESCO,
adding that UIS data reveals that households are more likely to send a boy who
is past the official entry age to school than a girl.
At
the same time, once girls do gain entry to school, they are more likely than
boys to successfully complete primary education. In many countries boys tend to
drop out of school more than girls.
The
report says that disparities against girls in secondary education are more
severe than those against boys, with boys having greater access than girls in
38 per cent of countries.
For
every 100 boys enrolled in secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa, for example,
there were about 79 girls in 2008 compared to 82 girls in 1999.
According
to UNESCO, gender disparities are equally marked in tertiary education in all
regions of the world. The only countries to achieve parity at this level are
In
low-income countries such as
Female
students in wealthy countries, meanwhile, outnumber men at the tertiary level.
In
The
report adds that at the bachelor’s degree level, most countries reporting data
have achieved gender parity in terms of graduates. Women are more likely to
pursue the next level of education, accounting for 56 per cent of graduates
with master’s degrees.
However,
men surpass women in virtually all countries at the highest levels of
education, accounting for 56 per cent of all PhD graduates and 71 per cent of
researchers.