Ei-iE

With 62 million girls still denied their right to basic education, the new Gender Summary of the Education For All Global Monitoring Report makes it clear that gender parity in education is far from reality.

The Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) launched the new Gender Summary, co-produced with the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), at the International Day of the Girl 2015 - The Power of the Adolescent Girl: Vision for 2030 – hosted on 12 October by UNICEF in New York City.

The report highlights that girls continue “to draw the short straw” in terms of education worldwide, and shows that fewer than half of countries have achieved gender parity, leaving sixty-two million girls still being denied their right to a basic education.

It tells the story of gender progress over the past 15 years, one of the more positive stories for education since 2000, with 52 million fewer girls out of school and 29 more countries with gender parity now than then. However, there remain persistent barriers to gender parity that have still left fewer than half of countries with gender imbalances in the classroom.

Also, girls remain the least likely to access school, and the poorest girls are still those who are the furthest behind. Gender gaps widen the higher up the education system you go, the Gender Summary of the EFA GMR 2015 says.

This discussion forum focused on issues related to investing in adolescent girls’ empowerment and rights will be held in conjunction with the launch of the Gender Summary of the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR).

In relation to the International Day of the Girl Child, UNESCO and the EFA GMR have also launched a profitable interactive online tool showing the extent of gender gaps in different circumstances around the world.