Conclusions – What Have We Learned?

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explains the relative levels of school enrolments in different countries, together with their gendered characteristics. It reviews theoretical approaches to problems of gender, education and development; it would be useful to indicate some of the implications of their work for this more abstract terrain. The book argues that national commitment to sustained and effective spending on primary schooling and to efficient containment of its unit costs will be required. It suggests a framework in which low incomes and high costs facing both states and households might lead to low enrolments, whilst gender relations in households, schools, and the labour market and in society more broadly, were mainly responsible for their gender composition. The book demonstrates that the simple relationship between gross enrolment rates and per capita income is only weakly positive across countries.