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EDUCATION FOR ALL GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2015<br />
GENDER SUMMARY<br />
on universal primary education. While this focus<br />
led to notable progress in terms of gender parity<br />
in primary school enrolment, this narrow framing<br />
of gender and education meant that broader<br />
discussion and achievements were limited.<br />
Thus, taking stock of progress towards gender<br />
equality between 2000 and 2015, the world remains<br />
far from achieving gender equality in education<br />
and a gender-just society, despite some progress<br />
towards EFA goals. Looking more specifically at<br />
each of the EFA goals, four important trends can<br />
be highlighted.<br />
First, notable progress towards achieving gender<br />
parity in primary and secondary education has<br />
been one of the success stories of the post-Dakar<br />
EFA era. Globally, women and girls have had<br />
better access to educational opportunities than<br />
at any other time in history, helping to realize the<br />
right of all girls to education. However, improving<br />
gender parity does not necessarily ensure greater<br />
equality or improving the social and economic<br />
position of women.<br />
Second, as more children, especially girls, have<br />
gained access to school, awareness has increased<br />
of the barriers that continue to prevent millions of<br />
girls, as well as boys, from enrolling, attending,<br />
remaining and succeeding in school; many of these<br />
barriers have a gendered dimension. The increased<br />
recognition of gender inequalities in education is a<br />
necessary step to tackle gender discrimination.<br />
The third important trend is the growing recognition<br />
of the importance of good quality education.<br />
School-based factors, including overcrowded<br />
classrooms, untrained teachers, a lack of resources<br />
and gender-based violence, prevent many children<br />
from receiving a quality education. A poor quality<br />
education restricts children’s achievement in<br />
learning and increases the risks of their early<br />
exit from schooling. Children who already face<br />
disadvantage and discrimination – especially<br />
girls – suffer the most from poor quality schooling<br />
(UNESCO, 2014c). Furthermore, the legacy of this<br />
learning crisis in formal schooling also extends into<br />
adulthood. Millions of adults who have been failed<br />
by education systems, the majority of whom are<br />
women, have inadequate literacy skills and struggle<br />
to access decent health care or decent jobs because<br />
they cannot read or write – a situation that has not<br />
been remedied during the EFA era.<br />
The fourth trend is the recognition of the need to<br />
shift from the dominant focus on gender parity to<br />
understanding and advocating for gender equality<br />
in education. It is a challenge. Advocacy for gender<br />
equality does not yet match advocacy for gender<br />
parity. This is complicated by gender equality in<br />
education being a complex notion that is harder to<br />
measure than parity. Assessing progress towards<br />
gender equality in education will require moving<br />
beyond counting the number of boys and girls, and<br />
men and women who are in school or who have<br />
an education. It will involve exploring how ideas<br />
and practices relating to gender shape the form<br />
and quality of people’s educational experiences<br />
in the classroom and school community, their<br />
educational achievements and their aspirations<br />
for the future. It will also require examining the<br />
extent to which education will empower people<br />
to challenge forms of gender discrimination they<br />
may experience in their families, communities and<br />
society more broadly.<br />
Progress towards gender parity<br />
in education<br />
Achieving gender parity in enrolment is an<br />
important step towards the goal of gender equality<br />
in education. But while the proportion of countries<br />
achieving gender parity in education – measured<br />
by a gender parity index (GPI) of 0.97 to 1.03 1 – has<br />
increased since 1999, progress has been uneven<br />
across education levels and disparities have not<br />
been eliminated (Figure 1).<br />
The proportion of countries demonstrating parity at<br />
the pre-primary level increased from 55% in 1999 to<br />
70% in 2012, with relatively few countries exhibiting<br />
large gender disparities in enrolment. Although<br />
the target of reaching gender parity in primary<br />
enrolment by 2005 was missed, over two-thirds of<br />
countries with data achieved it by 2012. Progress<br />
towards gender parity in secondary education<br />
has been less marked: half of countries with data<br />
achieved parity in lower secondary by 2012, and only<br />
29% in upper secondary. And although the number<br />
of countries with severe disparities in both lower<br />
and upper secondary has declined, large disparities<br />
in enrolment remain and are increasingly prevalent<br />
moving up through the education levels. Only 4% of<br />
1. Gender parity is formally ‘achieved’ if the GPI ranges from 0.97 and 1.03. For the<br />
purposes of this report, severe gender disparity is indicated by a GPI of less than<br />
0.90 (less than 90 girls to every 100 boys) or greater than 1.11 (less than 90 boys to<br />
every 100 girls).<br />
Progress<br />
towards<br />
achieving<br />
gender parity<br />
in primary<br />
and secondary<br />
education has<br />
been one of<br />
the success<br />
stories since<br />
Dakar<br />
7