72 million children are currently out of school, the majority of whom are girls.
There are at least 771 million illiterate adults worldwide, of whom 64 per cent are women.
Two of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relate directly to education. MDG 2 aims to achieve universal primary education by 2015, ensuring that children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. MDG 3 - to promote gender equality and empower women - seeks to eliminate gender disparity in education. Its first target was to get as many girls as boys into school by 2005.
The first MDG target – to get as many girls as boys into primary and secondary school by 2005 – was missed in over 90 countries. In countries such as Niger and Burkina Faso, only one in three girls go to school at all.
In 2006, failure to reach the 2005 MDG gender-parity target will result in over 1 million unnecessary child and maternal deaths. Educated women have greater knowledge about health issues and greater bargaining power in the household, which has a positive impact on their own health and that of their children.
HIV/AIDS infection rates double among young people who do not finish primary school. If every girl and boy received a complete primary education, at least seven million new cases of HIV could be prevented in a decade.
In many countries, school fees are a major barrier that prevents children – especially girls – from going to school. When school fees were abolished in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, seven million additional children – many of them girls –- entered school in these three countries alone.
Well-trained and well-supported teachers are essential to providing good-quality education for girls and boys. However, there is currently a global shortage of two million teachers, and at least 15 million new teachers will be needed between now and 2015 in order to achieve education for all.
Globally, an extra $7-17 billion per year is still needed to enable all girls and boys to receive a quality primary education.
