Afghanistan has overcome the biggest obstacles of any country in its efforts to educate girls, according to a new global education reportreleased on Tuesday by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
In 1999, at a time when the ruling Taliban barred girls from getting an education, fewer than 4 percent of girls were enrolled in school, but by 2010 female enrolment was 79 percent, the UNESCO Education for All (EFA) report said.
Community schools, which make travel distances shorter, are credited with increasing security for girls and pushing up enrolment.
Afghanistan is the only country where girls still face an “extreme disadvantage” when it comes to education, according to the Gender Parity Index (GPI), cited in the report as a measure of gains and losses.
Gender parity is reached when a country’s GPI is between 0.97 and 1.03.
The number of countries with a GPI indicator below 0.70 fell from 16 in 1990 to 11 in 2000, to only one — Afghanistan — in 2010. Afghanistan’s GPI rose from 0.08 to 0.69 between 1999 and 2010.
