always accord them full respect in classroom activity.297 Textbooks and school programmes
should be revised and teaching methods adapted to achieve these aims.298
Teacher training
States must ensure that teacher-training institutions improve gender parity in teacher
recruitment and graduation.299 They should incorporate a gender perspective in courses for
trainee teachers of both sexes and develop gender training programmes for both female and
male serving teachers.
Barriers
States must identify the extent to which aspects of customs, traditions and any other sociocultural factors impede egalitarian treatment of girls and women in educational institutions
and take steps to eradicate those impediments.300
States must develop and apply qualitative and quantitative indicators to identify and address
the barriers to girls’ and women’s full enjoyment of their right to education, including
discrimination and financial disadvantage.
States must ensure that families desist from giving preferential treatment to boys in
education.301 Measures should include information and awareness raising campaigns, as well
as other actions necessary to remove the barriers to female education. Such measures may
include financial support to families in need.
States should be aware of and take measures to prevent both males and females from
dropping out of educational institutions, in particular secondary and higher institutions, by
reason of financial and other constraints. Programmes should be organised for those who
have left school prematurely.302
297
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education Girls’ right to education E/CN.4/2006/45
8 February 2006 at para 102.
298
CEDAW article 10(c).
299
The Special Rapporteur has noted the absence of female teachers in some countries and their
prevalence in others: see Preliminary Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education
E/CN.4/1999/49 13 January 1999.
300
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education Girls’ right to education E/CN.4/2006/45
8 February 2006 at paras 21 – 25.
301
CESCR General Comment No. 16: The equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all
economic, social and cultural rights E/C.12/2005/4 11 August 2005 at para 30.
302
See CEDAW article 10(f), although this applies exclusively to girls and women.
109