UNESCO released Gender and Education for All 2000-2015 report

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 12 October 2015 released a report entitled Gender and Education for All (EFA) 2000-2015: Achievements and Challenges. It was compiled by UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report (GMR) and UN Girl’s Education Initiative.

As per the report, which delineated educational attainments among girls across the world, only fewer than half the countries have achieved the goal of ensuring gender parity in both primary and secondary education before 2005.

Highlights of the report

• Although the goal of gender parity has not been met by all, progress towards gender parity is one of the biggest education success stories since 2000.
• No country in sub-Saharan Africa has been able to meet the gender equality goal.
• The number of countries that have achieved the goal of gender parity in both primary and secondary education has risen from 36 to 62 since 2000.

• 62 million girls are still denied their basic right to education, the number of out-of-school girls has declined by 52 million in the last 15 years.
• Gender gaps in youth literacy are narrowing. However, fewer than seven out of every ten young women in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to be literate by 2015.
• Challenges in achieving gender parity are- school-related gender based violence and child marriages. In 2012, almost one in five women who married was aged 15 to 19.
• To remedy the situation- the report suggested for providing education as a free service, giving alternative secondary education options for out-of-school adolescents and integrating gender issues into all aspects of policy and planning.

Report with respect to India

In India, gender gaps in primary and lower secondary education have closed due to adoption of multiple strategies that include free textbooks for girls, back-to-school camps and bridging courses, recruitment of female teachers, and national programmes to increase demand for schooling among rural and disadvantaged girls among others.

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