Unesco’s recent Education for All week was outwardly a campaign to boost the educational opportunities for children in the Third World. On closer inspection, however, the campaigning materials betray a political motive involving one issue alone: ‘gender parity’.
‘Educating girls yields the highest return in economic terms,’ asserts Unesco. ‘Countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have not sent enough girls to school over the past 30 years now have GNPs 25 per cent lower than if they had given them a better chance.’ This dubious statistic fails to acknowledge that in several African countries – notably Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Lesotho and Zambia – more girls attend school than boys; and they are hardly economic hothouses either.
In its campaign materials, Unesco provides no figures for the absolute numbers of children who attend school in various countries; the only thing which seems to matter is that as many girls as boys go to school.
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