World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education

5 March 2012

DATA TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Twenty years ago, a young girl starting school in sub-Saharan Africa could expect to receive about five years of education during her entire life – and part of that time might have been spent repeating grades. Today, she can expect to spend about eight years in a classroom. But the boy sitting next to her is likely to benefit from an extra 18 months of instruction. This remarkable yet uneven progress comes to life in the World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education, released by UNESCO for International Women’s Day 2012.

The atlas includes more than 120 maps, charts and tables featuring a wide range of sex-disaggregated indicators produced by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. It illustrates the educational pathways of girls and boys and the changes in gender disparities over time.