Poverty reduction and gender parity in education: An alternative approach

For developing countries to reap benefits from female education and significantly reduce poverty, it is crucial that the attainment of gender parity in educational planning and management is not focused only on redressing the imbalance between female and male enrolment rates at the primary or basic education level. Gender inequality needs to be redressed in areas such as retention, completion, access to quality education and progression to higher levels. This is ever more important considering that donors and government sometimes provide short-term support and overlook girls’ progression to the higher levels of education.