Education and Skills

Education: Girls are catching up with boys in sub-Saharan Africa

The gender gap in the system of education in Africa is reducing.

The gender gap in the system of education in Africa is reducing. Image: Unsplash/Doug Linstedt

Martin Armstrong
Data Journalist, Statista
  • In sub-Saharan Africa there is still room for improvement in levels of participation in education, regardless of gender.
  • However, the gender educational gap is reducing: in 2020, 66% of girls completed their primary education compared to 61% for boys.
  • Despite being ahead in primary education, girls still remain behind boys at lower and upper secondary levels, but these gaps are closing.

In Africa, progress has been made in a lot of areas over the last few decades. This is something we have regularly covered in our infographics, and this, using figures from UNESCO as quoted by the BBC, reveals another aspect which has seen positive developments of late.

Participation in education is still an issue with room for improvement in sub-Saharan Africa, regardless of gender, but for girls as recently as 2000, the problem was even more acute. At primary level, just 44 percent of girls were completing their education 22 years ago. In 2020, that figure had risen to 66 percent, and had even overtaken the rate for boys (despite healthy gains, too).

Education in Africa and gender gap

Girls remain behind boys at lower and upper secondary levels, but the gaps have been reduced in the past two decades - going from 5 percentage points at lower secondary level to just two points, and from 6 points at upper secondary level to 3 in 2020.

Education in Africa: Participation in education is still an issue with room for improvement in sub-Saharan Africa.
Education in Africa: Participation in education is still an issue with room for improvement in sub-Saharan Africa. Image: Statista
Discover

What's the World Economic Forum doing about the gender gap?

Have you read?
Loading...
Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

Education, Gender and Work

Related topics:
Education and SkillsGeographies in Depth
Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Education, Gender and Work is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

Why younger generations need critical thinking, fact-checking and media verification to stay safe online

Agustina Callegari and Adeline Hulin

October 31, 2024

Skills for the future: 4 ways to help workers transition to the digital economy

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum