The 2009 Global Education Digest (GED) presents a wide range of education indicators to assess progress towards Education for All and Millennium Development Goals. These cross-nationally comparable indicators also provide benchmarks for the performance of national education systems. The Digest provides data for the school year ending in 2007 or the latest year available, as well as data for 2008 for a small number of countries. It includes data tables from the World Education Indicators (WEI) programme, which are comparable across a group of 62 countries, including those that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In addition, time series data on tertiary education from 1970 onwards are presented. The special focus of this edition is the analysis of emerging global trends in tertiary education, highlighting the rapid growth of tertiary education systems since 1970, changing patterns in tertiary education graduates by

The 2010 edition of the Global Education Digest focuses on gender and education to mark the 15th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women. Shortly after this landmark conference in 1995, the international community pledged to eliminate gender disparities at all levels of education by 2015 as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As the official source of data to monitor advancement towards these goals, the UIS has released the Digest on the eve of the UN Millennium Summit (New York, 20-22 September) to present the latest available data to analyse national progress and pitfalls in offering every child and young person equal access to education regardless of their sex. According to the Digest, boys and girls in only 85 countries will have equal access to primary and secondary education by 2015, if present trends continue. Seventy-two countries are not likely to reach the goal - among which, 63 are far from reaching parity at the secondary level.

This section begins by looking at the number of children who are out of schoolsome of whom have attended school at some point. It then presents the structure of national systems of compulsory education in order to identify the trajectories by which pupils progress -- or not -- through the education system. When are children meant to enter school and what are the ages that are supposed to be covered by the system? How effective is the policy concerning compulsory education? Does it cover all children? Do they start on time? The section ends with a description of the main patterns of school progression found across the world.

"The education of girls and women is important not only as a matter of respecting a basic human right for half the population but as a powerful force for economic development and achieving social goals such as enhanced health, nutrition and civic involvement. This Atlas presents the latest data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics on trends in educational access and progression, from pre-primary through tertiary levels and adult literacy, with special attention to the all-important issue of gender equality. These trends are depicted through colour-coded maps that make it easy for readers to visualize global and regional trends and to understand how they are shaped by factors such as national wealth and geographic location." -- P. [4] of cover.

Teachers for tomorrow's schools : analysis of the world education indicators.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is globally acknowledged as a powerful driver of change, empowering learners to make decisions and take actions needed to build a just and economically viable societ y respect ful of both the environment and cultural diversit y.