Basic education is stated as a free and obligated right to everyone in the United Nation’s declaration of human rights in 1948[1]. But still 115 million children are not in school[2].

In primary school enrolment, gender equity has nearly been reached in the developing countries. Yet, Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa lack behind despite their progress during the years 1990-2002. Better progress can be seen in Northern Africa, in countries like Ghana, Gabon and Liberia.[3] Still there are large differences between countries and regions, such as Botswana and Zimbabwe in the otherwise rather uneducated Southern Africa. Despite the progress in primary school enrolment and attendance, which is one of the Millennium Development Goals, it is the secondary school where inequality still prevails. In Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the progress had happened in primary school enrolment, same hasn't occurred in secondary schools.   Especially in Benin the enrolment ratios are low: 41 % vs. 23 % and also in Afghanistan 24 % vs. 8 %. Good examples are Botswana with literacy rate over 90 % in both genders, but still secondary school attendances are low even here. Another one of the few goods is Zimbabwe with literacy rate of 98 % for both male and female, and rather high ratios in all of the other categories. Biggest differences between genders in all of the categories are in Central African Republic, Niger and Chad. The percentages of primary school entrants reaching grade 5 are surprisingly high even in the worst areas like Sub-Saharan Africa with 86 % even though there are big differences between admin data and survey data (Malawi 42 % vs. 87 %). But therefore, the drop in secondary school enrolments is even more staggering as about half of the children are enrolled to secondary school in developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa the numbers are as low as 20 % versus over 60 % in the north.

Basic education is said to lead the path to economic wellbeing, scientific and technological development, decrease of unemployment, social equity and political socialisation and cultural liveliness1. Education of girls has social and economical benefits not only to themselves, but for the whole community. As educated girls become women they participate more, they are prone to have fewer children and also to educate them, the children are healthier and more protected towards HIV/AIDS. All these are important factors in breaking the cycle of poverty.^2,4

Although gender is generally said to be one of the biggest factors in receiving education, there are those who disagree. Kanbur states in his article Education, empowerment and gender inequalities that gender is actually less influential to education than income as gender-related inequity is not as big of an issue as it is presented to be. Even though the article states that equity does not lead to macro-level growth, the attention should still be focused on economic and social inequity such as education.[5] The means to battle for education are diverse and country specific¹.

So what are the reasons for uneducated children especially in the developing countries? In Cimombo´s article the reasons are diverse. Families have to make a choice between the cost of educating their children now and perhaps benefiting in the future or benefiting now of their part in home chores and work. Parental characteristic is one of the main reasons whether children are educated or not. Value of education varies. Culture and customs can state that girls can’t attend to schools or use the same facilities with boys. In some cultures girls are to stay home and work.¹ Protestant religion is said to be more education prone than Islam and Hindu[6]. Deprived groups of people are in weaker position due to e.g. race or language. Use of another language in school than at home is said to be an important factor for children to be enrolled and not to drop out of school. Especially with girls teaching methods, curriculum, class room and other facilities and the sex of the teacher makes an important factor. In rural areas the situation is even more difficult, as the distances are long and number of children high. The quality of education is another factor in lack of schooling of children. Poor teachers increase the number of repeaters and therefore costs of education are even higher. ¹

Rural people, ethnic minorities and low-income families are said to be in most risk concerning schooling. Poverty, isolation, parents, ethnicity and community characteristics of indigenous people are other factors in determining whether children get to go to school or not.[7] Other challenges stated by the World Bank are HIV/AIDS, orphan hood, conflicts and other emergency situations, gender-related violence and also gender gap in information technology.4

One fact that I was pondering over with the statistics was the numbers that exceeded 100 % in some countries as the enrolled pupils. An explanation for this could be the high number of repeaters, which are included in this rate. Also the teachers and policy makers are prone to exaggerate the rates in order to make them look better. This could be demonstrated in the rather high differences in administrative data and the survey data, but in the table in question only Comoros and Bolivia had higher administrative rates than survey rates. According to Handbook, the best comparison between countries is by comparing the rates of primary school entrants reaching grade 5. Yet, these figures don’t show the decreasing numbers of secondary education. Low-income countries are said to be 30 years behind middle-income countries, which in turn are 60 years behind the developed countries. The differences e.g. girls and boys get more and more narrow as the country gets more and more developed. In the developed countries girls actually overtake boys. Nevertheless, there are exceptions such as Swaziland where women are statistically outranking boys in literacy rates.[8]