Basic education and gender equality

Equal access to education

© UNICEF/ HQ99-0627/ Pirozzi

Ikhlas Fadel, 8, raises her hand to be called on by the teacher in a classroom. Iraq.

UNICEF’s long-term goal is for all children to have access to and complete an education of good quality. The international goals related to girls’ education are: 

Dakar Goals (World Education Forum)

• Ensuring that by 2015 all children -- particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities -- have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.
• Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.

Millennium Development Goals

• Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015.

A World Fit For Children Goals

• Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.

The international community will not reach these agreed upon goals if it sticks to a business as usual approach. Therefore, UNICEF is directing resources towards bringing girls into the classroom and keeping them there until they complete their basic education. With a mandate to serve the most marginalized groups, UNICEF focuses on girls - the largest group excluded from education. Out of an estimated 115 million children not in school, 62 million are girls. Ultimately, when schools are girl-friendly they are child-friendly.

In countries where the net enrolment rate of girls is less than 85 per cent, UNICEF programmes help governments to formulate policies, procedures and practices that will significantly reduce the number of girls who are not in school.

UNICEF’s strategies to support access and reduce the number of girls out of school are adapted to the local situation. Interventions typically include:

• Outreach to locate excluded and at-risk girls and get them into school;
• Policy support and technical assistance to governments and communities to  increase access for children who are hardest to reach or suffer most from  discrimination;
• Programmes to eliminate cultural, social and economic barriers to the education of girls;
• Support for the development and implementation of specific actions to reduce the gender gap, while increasing overall enrolment and attendance;
• Assistance in preparing for and responding to conflict and other crises so that affected children’s rights to basic education are fulfilled in safe, stable and gender-sensitive environments;
• Promoting quality in education as a means to encourage access.