Attachments
Key messages
„Despite progress, just two in three countries have achieved parity in primary, one in two in lower secondary, and one in four in upper secondary education enrolment. A quarter of countries have a large disparity against boys in upper secondary education, with no change since 2000.
„Some regions are progressing faster than others, including Central and Southern Asia, mostly thanks to change in India. But sub-Saharan Africa remains far from parity at all education levels.„In countries with low primary and secondary completion rates, the relative disadvantage of girls worsens with poverty.„Parents tend to read more often to girls, one of the factors associated with them outperforming boys in reading in primary school assessments.
„Technical and vocational programmes remain a male bastion, while the opposite is true for tertiary education. Subject choice is also gender segregated. Only just over a quarter of those enrolled in engineering, manufacturing and construction programmes, and in information and communications technology programmes are women.
„Harmful social norms can prevent change from happening in education with women still frequently seen as being wives and caregivers; over a quarter of people think that ‘a university education is more important for a boy’. In most countries, girls are also more than twice as likely to be involved in child domestic work than boys.
„Achieving gender equality will not occur without strong political commitment. Laws should ban child marriage and enable pregnant students to go to school. At least 117 countries and territories still allow children to marry.
„Social institutions can be discriminatory and hold back progress for girls and women. One in four countries had a high or very high discrimination level in 2019.
„More commitment is needed to protect girls’ right to go back to school after pregnancy in laws and policies. In sub-Saharan Africa, four countries enforce a total ban against their return. „School-related gender-based violence impacts on school attendance and learning. One in four students in mostly high-income countries and one in three in mostly low- and middle-income countries reported having been bullied in the previous 12 months. Violence is exacerbated in displacement settings.
„Comprehensive sexuality education expands education opportunities, challenges gender norms and promotes gender equality, resulting in more responsible sexual behaviour and fewer early pregnancies.
„Too many schools lack sanitation facilities essential for menstrual hygiene management. Only half of schools in 2016 had access to handwashing facilities with soap and water.
„Teaching is frequently a female profession with men in charge. Nearly 94% of teachers in pre-primary education, but only about half of those in upper secondary education, are female. Many countries struggle to deploy female teachers where they are most needed, as in displacement settings, and there is little training in gender-sensitive teaching, which reinforces gender stereotypes in the classroom.
„Donor aid to gender equality in education needs to lead to sustainable results that are effective, scalable, replicable and participatory. Across OECD DAC member countries, 55% of direct aid to education was gender-targeted, ranging from 6% in Japan to 92% in Canada.
„Many sector plans ignore key priorities for gender equality. Analysis of 20 countries showed that cash and in-kind transfers are the most popular policy, featuring in three in four plans. Curriculum and textbook reform, girls’ participation in STEM courses and safe access to schools were the least popular, appearing in only a fifth of countries’ plans.
„The plans of Angola, the Central African Republic, Djibouti and Mauritania made scant references to gender inequalities in education, but those of Niger, Guinea and Somalia are strong roadmaps for change.