The most urgent priority is to ensure access to, and improve the quality of, education for girls and women, and to remove every obstacle that hampers their active participation.
Girls miss out on education, or learn poorly, for many reasons.
These include poverty, work, discrimination, lack of safety and security in school and irrelevant or poorly taught curricula. Now, with the historic Millennium Summit taking place at the United Nations 6 to 8 September 2000, the world community has a unique opportunity to address many of these problems and renew its commitment to girls' education. He urges leaders to reduce the gender gap by the year 2005, and to ensure by 2015 that all children, regardless of gender, have secured their right to complete quality basic education. About the meeting On 7 September, some 70 spouses of Heads of State and Government attending the Millennium Summit will gather at the Girls' Education Forum to discuss impediments to girls' education and ways to inspire greater action at the highest levels to overcome them. The United Nations has long recognized that securing the right of every child to a quality basic education is the most important long-term investment society can make.