THE STATE OF THE WORLD'S CHILDREN 2004 - Unicef

A concerted global push is now needed to meet
the Millennium Development Goals and the
education goals of Dakar – as well as to realize
the vision of the Special Session on Children to
create a world fit for children. The effort is
morally imperative; it must also be practical
and it must be catalytic.
It is within this context that UNICEF’s longstanding
commitment to girls’ education has
assumed greater urgency and why we now call
on all those concerned with human rights and
the Millennium Development Goals to:
1. Accelerate actions in countries that display
specific and flagrant gender discrimination
against girls and boys, especially in those
where either group is significantly at risk
of being left out of school.
2. Embrace a human rights-based, multisectoral
approach to development (see
Annex B, page 91), in order to redress
the multiple discriminatory situations that
deny children their right to quality primary
education.
By using a human rights model and a multisectoral
approach to ensuring that all girls
are educated, the world will necessarily have
to address underlying inequities and gender
discrimination. The results of such a global
initiative will cover a broad landscape. It will
create by 2005 a vanguard generation of children
who are living a lesson in equality. It will
mean that schools, curricula and teachers
are changing to become truly child-friendly,
thereby offering a better education to all children
equally. It will mean that all countries
FIGURE 2 TRENDS IN GENDER DISPARITIES IN PRIMARY EDUCATION (1990 – 1999)
Note: This figure shows changes on the gender parity index (GPI) in gross enrolment ratios in primary school education, by region.
1
Data refer to 1998/99.
Source: Adapted from ‘Figure 2.18: Trends in gender disparities in GER in primary school education (1990-1999)’ in EFA Global Monitoring Report 2002, UNESCO.
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