Summary

EDUCATION FOR ALL GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2015
GENDER SUMMARY
on universal primary education. While this focus
led to notable progress in terms of gender parity
in primary school enrolment, this narrow framing
of gender and education meant that broader
discussion and achievements were limited.
Thus, taking stock of progress towards gender
equality between 2000 and 2015, the world remains
far from achieving gender equality in education
and a gender-just society, despite some progress
towards EFA goals. Looking more specifically at
each of the EFA goals, four important trends can
be highlighted.
First, notable progress towards achieving gender
parity in primary and secondary education has
been one of the success stories of the post-Dakar
EFA era. Globally, women and girls have had
better access to educational opportunities than
at any other time in history, helping to realize the
right of all girls to education. However, improving
gender parity does not necessarily ensure greater
equality or improving the social and economic
position of women.
Second, as more children, especially girls, have
gained access to school, awareness has increased
of the barriers that continue to prevent millions of
girls, as well as boys, from enrolling, attending,
remaining and succeeding in school; many of these
barriers have a gendered dimension. The increased
recognition of gender inequalities in education is a
necessary step to tackle gender discrimination.
The third important trend is the growing recognition
of the importance of good quality education.
School-based factors, including overcrowded
classrooms, untrained teachers, a lack of resources
and gender-based violence, prevent many children
from receiving a quality education. A poor quality
education restricts children’s achievement in
learning and increases the risks of their early
exit from schooling. Children who already face
disadvantage and discrimination – especially
girls – suffer the most from poor quality schooling
(UNESCO, 2014c). Furthermore, the legacy of this
learning crisis in formal schooling also extends into
adulthood. Millions of adults who have been failed
by education systems, the majority of whom are
women, have inadequate literacy skills and struggle
to access decent health care or decent jobs because
they cannot read or write – a situation that has not
been remedied during the EFA era.
The fourth trend is the recognition of the need to
shift from the dominant focus on gender parity to
understanding and advocating for gender equality
in education. It is a challenge. Advocacy for gender
equality does not yet match advocacy for gender
parity. This is complicated by gender equality in
education being a complex notion that is harder to
measure than parity. Assessing progress towards
gender equality in education will require moving
beyond counting the number of boys and girls, and
men and women who are in school or who have
an education. It will involve exploring how ideas
and practices relating to gender shape the form
and quality of people’s educational experiences
in the classroom and school community, their
educational achievements and their aspirations
for the future. It will also require examining the
extent to which education will empower people
to challenge forms of gender discrimination they
may experience in their families, communities and
society more broadly.
Progress towards gender parity
in education
Achieving gender parity in enrolment is an
important step towards the goal of gender equality
in education. But while the proportion of countries
achieving gender parity in education – measured
by a gender parity index (GPI) of 0.97 to 1.03 1 – has
increased since 1999, progress has been uneven
across education levels and disparities have not
been eliminated (Figure 1).
The proportion of countries demonstrating parity at
the pre-primary level increased from 55% in 1999 to
70% in 2012, with relatively few countries exhibiting
large gender disparities in enrolment. Although
the target of reaching gender parity in primary
enrolment by 2005 was missed, over two-thirds of
countries with data achieved it by 2012. Progress
towards gender parity in secondary education
has been less marked: half of countries with data
achieved parity in lower secondary by 2012, and only
29% in upper secondary. And although the number
of countries with severe disparities in both lower
and upper secondary has declined, large disparities
in enrolment remain and are increasingly prevalent
moving up through the education levels. Only 4% of
1. Gender parity is formally ‘achieved’ if the GPI ranges from 0.97 and 1.03. For the
purposes of this report, severe gender disparity is indicated by a GPI of less than
0.90 (less than 90 girls to every 100 boys) or greater than 1.11 (less than 90 boys to
every 100 girls).
Progress
towards
achieving
gender parity
in primary
and secondary
education has
been one of
the success
stories since
Dakar
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