Social Indicators

Education of girls

• The International Development Goals call for equal enrollments of girls and boys in primary and secondary school by the year 2005.
• In 1995, girls made up only 43 percent of gross primary school enrollment in low-income countries. By 2005 they will still make up only 47 percent of all primary enrollment.
• In 1996, girls made up about 40 percent of secondary enrollment. Girls’ secondary enrollment has been rising at a faster rate than boys. By 2005 girls will make up about 47 percent of gross secondary enrollment also.
• The extent of female disadvantage in education varies enormously across countries. Gender gaps in education are large in Western and Central Africa, North Africa and South Asia:
• In India there is a 16.6 percentage point difference between the school enrollment of girls and boys aged 6 to 14. In Niger, the enrollment rate of boys aged 6 to 14 is 41 percent higher than the enrollment rate of girls (Table 17).

Education for the poor

• In many countries, most children from the poorest households have no schooling.
• For example, in India and Pakistan, as well as in Benin and Mali (among other West African countries), the median grade completed among 15 to 19 years olds from the bottom 40 percent of households is zero.
• There are often enormous gaps between the educational attainment of the rich and of the poor within countries.
• In India, for example, 15-19 year olds from the richest 20 percent of households have completed on average ten years of schooling. Children from the poorest 40 percent of households have on average no schooling.
• In some countries school drop-out rates are very high, especially among the poor.
• In Brazil, for example, whereas almost all children (15-19 year olds) of the poorest households have attended some school, only about 15 percent have completed primary school.
• Wealth differences in school enrollment are large in almost all developing countries:
• The rich-poor gap in Western and Central African countries ranges from 21 percentage points (Ghana) to almost 52 percentage points (Senegal). The same order of magnitude is seen in North Africa, as well as in South Asia (Table 18).

Table 18. Percentage of Poor 6-14 Year Olds in School

Source: Deon Filmer (1999), "The Structure of Social Disadvantage in Education: Gender and Wealth." Poverty is defined with respect to ownership of assets.

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