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UNESCO: Girls are still the first to be denied the right to education

2 March 2016 – Almost 16 million girls between the ages six and 11 will never get the chance to learn to read or write in primary school compared to about eight million boys if current trends continue, according to a new report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (UIS).
In the run-up to International Women’s Day on 8 March, the UNESCO eAtlas of Gender Inequality in Education shows that girls are still the first to be denied the right to education despite all the efforts and progress made over the past 20 years.
“We will never achieve any of the Sustainable Development Goals without overcoming the discrimination and poverty that stunt the lives of girls and women from one generation to the next,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova in a press release.
Gender disparities remain highest in the Arab States, sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 9.5 million girls will never set foot in a classroom compared to five million boys, according to UIS data. In total, more than 30 million children aged of six to 11 are out of school across the region. Some will start at a later age, but many more will remain entirely excluded with girls facing the biggest barriers.
The gender gap is even wider in South and West Asia, where 80 per cent of out of schoolgirls will never enter formal education compared to 16 per cent of out-of-school boys. This affects about four million girls compared to less than one million boys.
 “We clearly see where the injustices begin and how they accumulate through the lives of the most marginalized girls and women,” said Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “But the data also show that girls who do manage to start primary school and make the transition to secondary education tend to outperform boys and continue their studies.”


 


Source: UN News Center, 2 March 2016


 

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