Getting girls to school is only the first step in closing the education gap

In the world's poorest countries, keeping girls in school remains a vital task.

Manos Antoninis is director of UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring Report

In recent decades, we have made significant progress in poverty alleviation, immunization, and life expectancy, moving toward a more just and equal world. But in some areas, the pace of change has been glacial. Gender equality in education is an issue both superficial and profound: we have the wrong measure.

There is good news, of course. The 2019 Gender report, published by UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring (GEM) reporting team, notes that between 2000 and 2016, the number of illiterate adult women in high - and middle-income countries fell by 42 million. Most countries have made some progress in getting students into school, which means richer countries face the opposite challenge, with more boys dropping out of school than girls.

These differences expose the limits of promoting gender equality by ensuring equal numbers of men and women attend school. Of course, keeping girls in school is still important in some of the world's poorest countries, but it can be done with targeted measures, such as making their daily commutes safer. Among the 20 countries with the largest gaps between rich and poor, Guinea, Niger and Somalia have attracted much attention for their pledges to close the gender gap.

Balanced enrollment, however, is just the beginning. We need to address the root causes of educational inequality. In low-income countries, the root cause is to assess what happens in school, as well as post-graduation employment opportunities - both of which are influenced by societal attitudes towards gender.

All over the world, women are getting the message that their primary role should be caring for others. Half of the respondents to the sixth round of the World Values Survey, conducted in 51 countries between 2010 and 2014, agreed or strongly agreed that "when women work for money, children are not taken care of."

Given these perceptions, families and communities are unlikely to place a high value on girls' education. The same survey found that a quarter of people around the world still think a college education is more important for boys than for girls.

This view is borne out in schools. Students reinforce this stereotype in their study of textbooks and ignore the historical contributions of women. Although female teachers are heavily represented in schools, school leaders are usually men.

It is not surprising that even girls with some education are likely to pursue traditionally "feminine" career paths, including domestic work and nursing. Women make up just over a quarter of students studying engineering, manufacturing, construction and information and communication technology.

Such gendered expectations also often lead to tolerant attitudes towards child marriage, early pregnancy, domestic work and even sexual violence (including in schools), not only in society but also in law. At least 117 countries and territories still allow child marriage. Four sub-Saharan African countries ban girls from going back to school during or after pregnancy. In most countries, girls are twice as likely as boys to participate in domestic work.

These severely limit women's prospects and leave them vulnerable to economic, social and physical assault. If we want to protect girls' rights, including their right to education, we need to take action to change destructive policies and the social norms that underpin them. For example, educational strategies should include relevant revisions to curricula and teaching materials.

We analyzed the 20 countries with the largest gender differences, but 16 of them did not consider these issues. Education strategies in Angola, the Central African Republic, Djibouti and Mauritania barely mention gender issues.

Development partners have a powerful role to play in changing this. In 2017, slightly more than half of direct education assistance had gender equality and women's rights as its main goal. If donors emphasize the type of change needed that is comprehensive and malleable in attitude, and the need to create solutions that are scalable, replicable, and participable, this will help promote responsive government strategies and sustainable public programs that serve everyone.

The benefits of education for all are recognized around the world: the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals include a goal to close gender disparities in education by 2030. But if these benefits are to be safeguarded, we must acknowledge the shortcomings of the enrollment approach. The Global Education Monitoring Report has adopted a new framework to monitor gender equality in education. Countries and donors should do the same, and adapt their education strategies accordingly.