n granted the opportunity to show them.
It is this combination of factors which makes Africa's Eve so powerless to change her disadvantaged position. Let us today explore the absence of gender equity and equality in the fields of education, employment and political decision-making in order to understand better the causes of women's continued subordination.
Education is so important to human development and the quality of life that it has come to be considered a basic human right. Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states unequivocally that "Everyone has the right to an education." Yet in 1990, International Literacy Year, 26 per cent of the world's adult population was estimated to be illiterate. For adult women this figure rose to 33 per cent. This means that one in three adult women are illiterate, while the corresponding estimate for men is one in five.1
According to the UNDP, the gap between developing and industrialized countries on human development issues, including education, has been narrowing over the past three decades. The literacy gap between North and South narrowed from 54 percentage points in 1970 to 34 points by 1987. School enrolment rates in the South now average 70 per cent of rates in the North. However, despite this progress, there is considerable diversity within the nations of the South: poverty and deprivation have become more concentrated in Africa than any other region, particularly during the 1980s.2
High population growth rates in many African countries make the provision of universal primary education increasingly difficult. The percentage of the population under 15 years of age has decreased since 1970 in all regions of the world except Sub-Saharan Africa, where it has increased slightly and is projected to remain around 46 per cent of the total population throughout this decade. In pure numerical terms, this is an increase from roughly 122 million children in 1970 to 231 million in 1990, and projected to 317 million in the year 2000. The increased number of schools and teachers necessary to meet the educational needs of this growing population would require considerable capital resources and investment in training from all governments. UNESCO estimates that if every child aged 6-14 in Sub-Saharan Africa was to be admitted to school, and assuming 40 students for each teacher, one out of every eight working-age adults would have to be a full-time teacher!3
It is the gender gap in education, however, which is most striking, and most concerns us today. The extent to which the right to education is enjoyed by girls and women can be considered one of the most important measures of any society's views on the status of its women. Of the 300 million children who did not have access to primary or secondary education in 1990, two thirds were girls. In a significant number of countries, the total female literacy rate is half or less than half of the corresponding male rate. The gender disparity in enrolment is particularly wide in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, while it is negligible in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Women over 25 years of age in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Arab States are likely to have received an average of only 1-1.4 years of schooling each. In Latin America the corresponding level is 4.1, and in the industrialized countries 8.8 years.4
Yet the costs of illiteracy to individual women, to their societies and their environments is considerable. Illiterate women tend to be less productive, and confined to lower status and lower pay jobs than educated women. They are often less able to follow advice which would enhance the health of their children or promote environmental protection. Uneducated women generally marry younger and have more children than their educated sisters, are less likely to use family planning and have less input into family decision making. Their girl children are also less likely to complete their own basic education5.
Why are there fewer girls than boys in school? There are many reasons why the 