Now a report released this year by Oxfam International, the UK-based voluntary organization. Some of the developing world's widest educational disparities exist among Indian states. In southern Kerala nearly all children in the 10-14 age group are literate while a third of the boys and two thirds of the girls in northern Uttar Pradesh are illiterate. The education system in Nepal is characterized by low and inequitable distribution of services, poor quality of education insufficient funding and high drop-out rates. Two-thirds of students who enroll do not continue into lower secondary.
Educational deprivation is one of the main causes of poverty and inequality.
But these two factors are also among the main causes of educational deprivation. Poor countries can be expected to have particular problems in providing basic education, but South Asian countries are under-performing far more than others in spite of having similar income levels, according to Oxfam. For example, China has a slightly higher average income than Pakistan but its citizens are three times as likely to enroll in school and almost twice as likely to complete school. The gender gap in enrolment for China is six times lower than that of Pakistan. India and Pakistan spend more than three times as much on arms as they do on primary education, according to the Oxfam report.