Gender Equality in Education
Education is universally acknowledged to benefit individuals and promote national development. Education expands the opportunities and life choices for both boys and girls.
Worldwide, however, 60 million girls remain out of school.
USAID has been working to close the gap between boys and girls by assessing the degree of educational disadvantage that girls face, identifying gender-related obstacles and implementing remedies to remove and overcome them.
Effective Strategies for Educating Girls
An effective strategy for educating girls needs to include attention to access and enrollment, as well as to quality and achievement. Girls in developing countries often come up against teaching practices, textbooks and other learning materials in schools that promote gender stereotypes that are detrimental to their academic achievement. Unsafe school environments also pose challenges to girls to complete their education.
Keeping girls in school requires that parents, community members, educators, policymakers, and donors look beyond enrollment and address larger, contextual issues, such as the impact that inequities between girls and boys has on educational quality.
WID Office Approach to Gender Equality
As a matter of policy, USAID places major emphasis on female access to basic education. In all cases, USAID emphasizes educational equity for girls and women as a strategy for achieving educational equality for all.
USAID's Education Strategy:
Improving Lives Through Learning
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The Office of Women in Development's approach to gender equality in education includes:
- Testing innovative pilot programs to reduce school-related gender-based violence;
- Developing practical tools for USAID staff and implementing partners to design, implement and evaluate education programs that address equitable access and quality with a gender perspective; and
- Bringing attention to the norms and behaviors that perpetuate inequalities in schools and the effect gender dynamics have on educational success or failure for both girls and boys.
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Worldwide, 60 million girls remain out of school.
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Current Activities
Safe Schools Program
EQUATE: Achieving Equality in Education
Please see the Activity Archives for a list of completed Education activities.
Key Publications
EQUATE Technical Briefs: Gender, Education, and HIV/AIDS (09/20/2007 PDF)
Gender Equality in Education: a Dynamic Framework (9/20/2007 PDF)
Glossary of Gender Terms (9/20/2007 PDF)
Training Guide: Continuum of Approaches for Achieving Gender Integration in Programming: A Decision-Making Tool for Education Officers; 1/07 [PDF 2.8MB]
The Safe Schools Program: Quantitative Research Instrument to Measure School-Related Gender-Based Violence ; 12/06 [PDF,
1.39MB]
Unsafe Schools: A Literature Review of School-Related Gender-Based
Violence in Developing Countries; 09/03 [PDF,444kb]
The publications below are listed by region and country, and then in alphabetical order by title.
Global
General
Girls' education and crises 05/01/2001 (830KB)
This document summarizes the results of an examination of various types of crises, including severe economic downturn, epidemic disease, and internal conflict, on the participation of girls in primary schooling. It summarizes the general trends in girls' education across the countries that have received USAID assistance over the last 30 years, discusses the principal findings regarding girls' education in these countries during periods of crisis, and draws implications from these findings. The document was produced under the Girls' Education Monitoring System (GEMS) project.
User manual for the Cohort Tracking System (CoTrack) 01/01/2003 (1.1MB)
This is the user's manual for the Cohort Tracking System (CoTrack), which was designed to collect and analyze individual student enrollment data from schools offering from pre-school through Grade 12. Cohorts are defined as the set of students enrolled in a grade in a given year. The manual was produced under the Girls' Education Monitoring System (GEMS) project.
Africa
Guinea
Guinea country study 05/01/2002 (102KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Monitoring and evaluation training courses in Guatemala, Guinea and Peru 03/01/2002 (1.7MB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
USAID girls' education initiatives in Guatemala, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, and Peru : a performance review 05/31/2002 (570KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Mali
Mali country study 05/01/2002 (76KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
USAID girls' education initiatives in Guatemala, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, and Peru : a performance review 05/31/2002 (570KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Asia
Philippines
Effects of active learning programs in multigrade schools on girls' persistance in and completion of primary school in developing countries 01/01/2003 (1.1MB)
Active learning programs are those designed to encourage the participation of students, community members, and school staff in managing the school. This document summarizes a study of the effects on female students of participation in such active learning programs in multi-grade schools in isolated rural areas where, because of the limited size of the student body, a teacher for each grade of primary school is impractical. The programs studied include Nueva Escuela Unitaria in Guatemala, Escuela Modelo in Nicaragua, and the Multigrade Demonstration Schools Project in the Philippines.
Latin America & Caribbean
Guatemala
Effects of active learning programs in multigrade schools on girls' persistance in and completion of primary school in developing countries 01/01/2003 (1.1MB)
Active learning programs are those designed to encourage the participation of students, community members, and school staff in managing the school. This document summarizes a study of the effects on female students of participation in such active learning programs in multi-grade schools in isolated rural areas where, because of the limited size of the student body, a teacher for each grade of primary school is impractical. The programs studied include Nueva Escuela Unitaria in Guatemala, Escuela Modelo in Nicaragua, and the Multigrade Demonstration Schools Project in the Philippines.
Guatemala country study 05/01/2002 (126KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Monitoring and evaluation training courses in Guatemala, Guinea and Peru 03/01/2002 (1.7MB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
USAID girls' education initiatives in Guatemala, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, and Peru : a performance review 05/31/2002 (570KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Nicaragua
Effects of active learning programs in multigrade schools on girls' persistance in and completion of primary school in developing countries 01/01/2003 (1.1MB)
Active learning programs are those designed to encourage the participation of students, community members, and school staff in managing the school. This document summarizes a study of the effects on female students of participation in such active learning programs in multi-grade schools in isolated rural areas where, because of the limited size of the student body, a teacher for each grade of primary school is impractical. The programs studied include Nueva Escuela Unitaria in Guatemala, Escuela Modelo in Nicaragua, and the Multigrade Demonstration Schools Project in the Philippines.
Peru
Monitoring and evaluation training courses in Guatemala, Guinea and Peru 03/01/2002 (1.7MB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Peru country study 05/01/2002 (114KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
USAID girls' education initiatives in Guatemala, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, and Peru : a performance review 05/31/2002 (570KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Middle East
Morocco
Morocco country study 05/01/2002 (99KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
USAID girls' education initiatives in Guatemala, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, and Peru : a performance review 05/31/2002 (570KB)
Project title: Girls' education monitoring system (GEMS)
Full List of Publications
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