ABSTRACT
In the mid 1960s less than 50 per cent of girls of primary school age were in school in South Asia, Africa and the Arab states compared much higher proportions of boys. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, although there had been huge increases in primary and secondary enrolments for girls and boys worldwide, nearly one billion adults and children still had little or no education. Girls and women comprised 62 per cent of this huge population (Unterhalter 2007a: xii, 157). Global concerns at these grave injustices have drawn on different values to consider the nature of gender inequalities in education and appropriate remedial actions. Needs, rights and capabilities have been given different emphases by different players at different times to ground policies and actions.
