From the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“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, according to a global report released today in New Delhi.
“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.
“‘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 program 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.
“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), Liberia (0.73), and Pakistan (0.74)…. 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)….”