Over 72 million children are out of primary school and almost 60 percent of them are girls. Some of the major/main issues in girls’ education are:
Out of School and High Drop Out Rates
Between 1999 and 2004, the worldwide number of children not in school declined at a very fast pace from about 100 million to 77 million. The most impressive reduction occurred in South and West Asia, where the number of children not enrolled in school decreased by almost half from 31 million in 1999 to 16 million in 2004. An increase in enrollments in India contributed to this positive trend. However, India is still among countries with the largest number of out-of-school children (4.6 million), along with Nigeria (8.1 million), Pakistan (6.5 million), and Ethiopia (3.6 million) (2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO, 2006). Worldwide, girls still constitute 57% of all out-of-school children, down from 59% in 1999.
Girls are dropping out of school before completing secondary schooling, where some of the greatest benefits to girls’ schooling accrue. In South Asia, only 47 percent of secondary school-aged girls are enrolled in school. In Sub-Saharan Africa, only 30 percent are enrolled (Children Out of School: Measuring Exclusion from Primary Education, UNESCO/UNICEF, 2005). Current estimates predict that only 27 of 118 countries studied are projected to reach gender parity in secondary education by 2015 (UNESCO 2005).
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, as in many other countries in Central and Eastern Europe and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, there is a ‘hidden crisis’ in girls’ education. In spite of good attendance and enrollment rates, the increasing number of girls who drop out of school indicates a serious problem. Enrollment decreases from primary to secondary schools. Where there is parity in enrollment, there is often a disparity in education quality. This is played out in school completion and learning achievements, where often there is a wide gap between boys and girls (The State of the World's Children 2007: Women and Children - The double dividend of gender equality, UNICEF, 2006).
The High Costs of Education and Poverty
Poverty is the single largest factor that causes disparities in education. Many poor parents cannot afford school fees and uniforms, as well as the supplies necessary to send their children to school. If all of their children cannot attend school, then parents will most likely give boys precedence over girls. Moreover, poor families cannot withstand the loss of income or labor contributed by children, in particular that of girls, and therefore do not send them to school. Traditional divisions of labor disadvantage girls. Girls are more likely to have tasks that prevent them from attending school, for instance, household chores and caretaking of younger siblings or sick members of the family.
The World Bank does not support user fees for primary education. User fees have gained attention in recent years as a policy issue, in part because progress toward achieving universal primary education has intensified the focus on enrolling the remaining out-of-school population. Eliminating school fees increases both girls’ and boys’ enrollments—but as shown in Tanzania and Uganda, these policies have a larger effect on girls. Countries such as Bangladesh and The Gambia have gone further, providing scholarships and financial aid for girls in the poorest communities. World Food Program “take-home rations” in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, and many other African countries have also been associated with significant increases in girls’ school attendance and completion (Global Monitoring Report - Literacy for Life, 2006).
Related Documents:
Implementation of Free Basic Education Policy(pdf, 6.4MB)
User Fees in Primary Education(pdf - 661KB)
Education Notes: “School Fees: A Roadblock to Education For All” (pdf - 184KB)
Poor School Performance and Learning Outcomes
Girls in developing countries are performing at much lower levels compared to boys than girls in developed countries. In three recent international assessments of reading, girls in developed or middle income countries always outperformed boys at statistically significant levels — 32 out of 32 countries in PISA 2000, 42 out of 42 in PISA 2003, 35 out of 35 in PIRLS 2001. Conversely, boys are almost always ahead or equal to girls in all of the 18 tested low-income countries of Francophone Africa and all of the 14 tested low-income countries from Eastern and Southern Africa.
In Ethiopia, gaps between boys and girls widen through the system – in 2000/2001 only 20% of girls passed the Grade 10 examinations compared with 53% of boys, and 46% and 67% respectively passed the Grade 12 examinations (EFA Global Monitoring Report for 2003-2004).
Gender disparities in primary education still remain a challenge
Significant progress has been made towards global gender parity during recent years. Global gender parity index (GPI) for the primary education gross enrollment ratio (GER) increased from 0.92 in 1999 to 0.94 in 2004. Dramatic progress has been made in some of the developing countries with low enrollment ratios and high gender divergence in both primary and secondary education. Notably, India has nearly reached gender parity in primary education. Its GPI in GER in primary education increased from 0.82 in 1999 to 0.93 in 2004. However, gender disparities still remain in Sub-Saharan Africa (GPI - 0.89), the Arab States (GPI – 0.90), and South and West Asia (GPI – 0.91). GPI is still low in Afghanistan (0.44), Chad (0.64), Central African Republic (0.69), the Niger (0.72), Yemen (0.71), and Pakistan (0.73). Gender parity in primary education is achieved in only four of the twenty-six countries with GER below 90% (2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO, 2006).
The Effects of HIV/AIDS
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is presenting enormous challenges in education, and girls’ are disproportionately affected whether they are infected or not. Globally, more than half of all people living with HIV are female. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, more than two out of three newly-infected 15-24 year olds are female. For adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19, five or six girls are infected for every boy in worst-affected areas. Girls who are not infected are affected by being caregivers to infected parents or family members, or becoming orphans when the parents die.
In three South African provinces, a survey of 771 AIDS affected households reported that more than 40% of primary caregivers took time off work or school. Almost 10% of households removed a girl from school (compared with 5% for boys). In these ways, AIDS reinforces gender inequities, deepens household poverty and threatens future generations (2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, UNAIDS).
In countries hard hit by HIV/AIDS, school enrollment has plummeted. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, 40% of boys and 44% of girls are out of school. In South Asia, 22 per cent of boys and 29 per cent of girls are not in school. Recent data from Sub-Saharan Africa found that children aged 10 to 14 who had lost both of their parents were less likely to be in school than their peers who were living with at least one parent. Studies in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia found that even when orphans attended school, they were less likely to be at the correct grade level for their age group (Girls, HIV/AIDS and Education, Unicef, December 2004).
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