Australian Development Gateway

The Australian Development Gateway (ADG) strives to support members of the development community in their efforts to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region. The site has been created with participation from members of government, private, academia and non-government organisations. User feedback mechanisms have been incorporated to guide future directions of the site. The site is optimised for low bandwidth access to enable the widest participation throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Skip to content

ADG channels:

Information by sector: Education

Sub navigation

ADG TOOLBOX

Equity & gender issues

Policy impacts on schooling gender gaps in developing countries (pdf 306kb)

This paper reviews the impact of policies in the education sector on schooling investments for girls and boys, distinguishing between policies that are gender neutral and those that explicitly target girls.

The issues examined include the impact of changes such as cost, distance and quality of schooling on the attendance rates of boys and girls. It also looks briefly at the impact of other policies such as subsidised childcare and flexible school scheduling.

The paper states that increasing the accessibility of schools is likely to result in disproportionate enrolment gains for girls. It recommends that where gender gaps are large or persistent, direct targeting of girls is probably necessary.

 

Footer: