UNICEF highlights gender discrimination, one in three girls never been to school

One among the three adolescent girls from the poorest households around the world has never attended school, according to the UNICEF paper launched on January 20. It was launched when education ministers gathered at the Education World Forum and as leaders prepare to convene at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. It revealed that poverty, discrimination due to gender, disability, ethnic origin or language of instruction, physical distance from schools and poor infrastructure are some of the major factors that continues to prevent the poorest children from accessing quality education. 

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Disparities spending in education 

The paper says that the exclusion of the poorest children from education is a key driver of a global learning crisis. The data was analyzed from 42 countries and it was found that "education for children from the richest 20 per cent of households are allocated nearly double the amount of education funding than children from the poorest 20 per cent of households." Disparities spending in education are particularly high in ten African countries with funding allocated to the richest children compared with the poorest. 

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Adverse effect of unequally distributed funding

Limited and unequally distributed funding results in large class sizes, less skilled teachers, lack of educational materials and poor school infrastructure. It has an adverse effect on attendance, enrolment, and learning. Barbados, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and Sweden are the only countries included in the analysis that distribute education funding equally between the richest and poorest quintiles. In Guinea and the Central African Republic, the richest children benefit from nine to six-time, respectively, the amount of public education funds than the poorest children.

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