Women's access to education in the Third World: myths and realities

Until recently, the determinants of women's access to education have not been a major concern for scholars, schoolmen, or policy makers. While this was the case in the Third World nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it was equally true for North America and Europe. Most international agencies and national governments did not even collect data detailing the number of women, as opposed to men, that entered school or kept themselves in the school system at successive levels of education. Charting women's educational patterns and the factors affecting them are major undertakings that have just begun (Kelly and Kelly, 1982; Deble, 1980; Bowman and Anderson, 1982; Rogers, 1980). Until our knowledge of women's educational enrollment patterns is more complete, the factors affecting women's access to education in the Third World can only be speculated upon.