Basic education and gender equality

Quality of education

© UNICEF/ HQ98-0543/ Pirozzi

A girl holds a slate above her head at the Koya Town Non-Formal Primary Education Centre, near Freetown. Sierra Leone.

Quality education is key to overcoming poverty in a single generation. Quality education is fundamental in creating a future for human security, community development and national progress. It is an enormous challenge. It is also an immense opportunity. 

Girls and boys have the same right to a quality education. But the “gender gap” becomes painfully evident when looking at who is in the classroom. In 1990, 20 per cent of the world’s primary-school-aged children were out of school, two-thirds of them girls. 2002 estimates indicated that the number of children out of school had been brought down to about 115 million worldwide; 62 million were girls. And while there were more children than ever in the world’s primary schools, far too many remain absent – the majority girls.

Quality is essential for closing the gender gap in basic education. Girls in particular face discrimination and challenging circumstances that keep them out of school or keep them from learning effectively. There is little point in providing the opportunity for a child to enrol in school if the quality is so poor that she will not attend, become literate, numerate, or become equipped with skills for life.

Parents with limited resources say that the quality of education plays an important role in their decision of whether or not to put or keep their daughters in school. If girls are not learning, if what they learn is not useful, or if the school environment is not safe for them, parents will not invest in sending their daughters to school.

Improving quality must be high on our agenda if we expect to get girls into school and keep them coming back.

An expanded view of quality

There are at least five key elements that affect quality education: what learners bring, environments, content, processes, and outcomes. Quality education begins with an adequate number of schools, books, pencils and trained teachers. It looks at the number of children who finish school. It moves beyond this to consider what goes on inside and outside of school, noting that good programming, whether in education or any other sectors, is gender sensitive.

UNICEF has developed a framework for defining quality in education. It answers questions within five dimensions that allow us to think about effective programming for girls' education and provide a baseline for monitoring quality.

1. What students bring to learning. Does the child have a positive, gender-sensitive early childhood experience within the family, the community and pre-schooling institution? How different is the language of the home from the language of the school? Has the child been affected by emergencies, abuse, daily labour or HIV/AIDS? Has the child been sufficiently oriented to the rhythm of schooling? What experiences do girl learners bring to school and what particular challenges do they face?

2. Environments. Are they healthy, safe, protective and gender-sensitive? What is required to create healthy, safe, protective and stimulating learning environments that enable girls to achieve?

3. Content of education. Are the curricula and materials relevant? Do children acquire basic skills, especially in literacy, numeracy, life-skills and knowledge in such areas as gender, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention, peace, or other national and local priorities? How does the content of curriculum and learning materials include or exclude girls?

4. Processes. Do trained teachers use child-centred teaching approaches in well-managed classrooms and schools? Do teachers make skilful assessments that facilitate learning and reduce disparities? What processes of teaching and learning and support for learning achievement – from the communities, parents, supervisors, and teachers – enhance or undermine girls’ learning achievement?

5. Outcomes. Do they encompass knowledge, skills and attitudes, and are they linked to national goals for education and positive participation in society? What outcomes of basic education do we expect for girls? How can we document how well girls are learning, and what pathways are opened up for further learning and fulfillment of their potential

UNICEF focuses on the single largest group denied the right to education – girls.  By providing quality education for girls, boys will benefit, too. UNICEF adapts its education programmes to girls’ learning styles and the environments that promote their learning. For the most part, programming is intersectoral. The UNICEF in Action section describes a number of programming areas such as education in emergencies, child-friendly schools and life skills-based education.