UNESCO report finds girls still face fewer opportunities to attend school

Girls continue to suffer from discrimination in access to schooling in most developing countries, according to a report issued today by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The UNESCO report, released in New Delhi, found gender inequality remains widespread despite what it called “slow but significant progress” during the 1990s.

The report found that in 54 countries, many across sub-Saharan Africa, gender parity in schools remains a long way off. In China, boys will outnumber girls in secondary schools for many more years. In at least 12 countries, girls’ enrolment at school is less than three-quarters that of boys.

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said the results in the latest Education For All Global Monitoring Report “are obviously a cause for deep concern.”

The report found that the number of girls attending school rose faster than that of boys in the decade to 2000 (the gender parity index increased from 0.89 to 0.93). In some countries the results were in favour of girls as the report found many boys do not finish their secondary education.

The report’s director, Christopher Colclough, said, “investing in the education of girls has a high pay-off. Education helps to increase (women’s) productivity to a significant extent, thereby adding to household incomes and reducing poverty. It also increases personal and social well-being.”