f 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 gender gap develops, and once it gets established in primary school it continues, often widening, through other levels of education. An early disadvantage for girls is often a lifetime disadvantage.
One reason for the gender gap is the cost of education. Many countries, particularly in Africa, have been hard hit by the consequences of bad political and economic choices, global recession and the rigours of structural adjustment. States which once offered free primary education are now introducing school fees, which results in a decrease in enrolment. In Nigeria, for example, when fees were introduced, primary enrolment decreased from 92 to 75 per cent of school-aged children. Even where school remains free, there are usually associated costs for uniforms, books, examinations and transportation which must be borne by each family. Sometimes these associated items can exceed the costs of fees, and are beyond the reach of many poor families. When parents have to choose which children to send to school, they usually choose their sons. The discrimination which women face in the labour market means that boys are more likely than girls to have access to employment after school, and at higher wages than their sisters6. Girls are more likely to be married and move away from home than boys (at least in patrilocal societies), and investments in their education would be lost to their parents, who rely on their sons to support them in their old age. Therefore it is girls who get pulled out first.
The indirect or 'opportunity' costs of sending girls to school can also deter poor families. Time-use studies in Tanzania, Bangladesh and Nepal have revealed that young girls do as much as six hours work each day in and around the home, which poor families may find particularly hard to do without. Girls may be needed to care for younger children while their mother works in the market or fields, or to walk several miles each day to obtain the daily requirements for water and firewood where these are scarce. A Nepalese study found that w