Majority of 8 million unschooled Arab children are girls

More than half of the eight million children of primary school age in 19 Arab states who remain out of school are girls, although when given the chance to gain an education, they tend to do better than boys and complete their schooling more often, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said in a new survey released Wednesday.

UNESCO says 5 million of the 8 million denied access to primary school are girls.

While equal enrolment rates among boys and girls has only been achieved in five states, compared to other regions, the Arab states had better gender parity in terms of access to primary school than countries in Africa.

The enrolment picture was also different in secondary education, where more girls than boys attend school at this level.

Considerable investment has been made in education throughout the region over the past 40 years, and that large increase in spending has paid off with the time spent in school increasing by about two and a half years, the survey indicates.

The report - which covers the 1999 and 2000 school years - does not take into account the effect of the conflicts in the occupied Palestinian territories and Iraq, both of which, the survey finds, had reported relatively high levels of participation in schooling.