The UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report 2024-25 highlights persistent gender disparities in learning outcomes and educational leadership across countries, including India. Despite progress in some areas, the report underscores that significant gaps remain in both school-level proficiency and representation of women in top academic positions.
According to the findings, boys continue to lag behind girls in reading proficiency worldwide. On average, only 87 boys attain the minimum proficiency level for every 100 girls. The gap is even wider in middle-income countries, where only 72 boys meet reading standards per 100 girls.
In Mathematics, gender parity has held for two decades, but recent data from the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic may have disrupted this balance. Girls in countries such as Brazil, Chile, England, Italy, and New Zealand have shown notable setbacks in performance compared to boys.
Leadership roles in education also reflect entrenched gender biases. In India, women remain under-represented as principals across all school types. At the higher education level, only 5 per cent of women held vice-chancellor or director roles in 189 national institutions in 2021. In a broader sample of 1,220 universities, women made up 9 per cent of vice-chancellors and 11 per cent of registrars or chief administrative officers.
The situation in Pakistan and Balochistan is similarly restrictive. Gender segregation in schools limits women's eligibility for leadership posts to girls' institutions only. In Balochistan, where headteacher posts in girls' schools are reserved for women, only 29% of schools in 2021 were for girls.
By contrast, Vietnam reported relatively better representation, with women occupying 28% of university leadership positions in 2019-though only 8% served as presidents or rectors.
