ABSTRACT
The state of women’s education throughout the world has undergone a noticeable change. This chapter presents a summary of the state of women’s educational conditions in public education in developing countries and identifies some of the factors affecting these conditions. Since an underlying rationale for this review is to understand the role of education in the improvement of women’s social and economic conditions, education is defined in a broad sense to encompass both schooling and nonformal education. Education is becoming increasingly available to people and some developing countries are making dramatic advances. Although primary enrollment rates are by far the most commonly used indicators of educational equality, they are very limited. Very few governments have engaged in the design of specific policies to help women in the formal education sector. Education is distributed in a pyramidal shape so that university education is attained by only a few.
