• In the year 2000 an estimated 875 million adults are illiterate of which nearly two-thirds are women.

• In 1969, the year man took his first step on the moon, 4 out of 5 women in Africa could not read or write. It is estimated that today nearly half of all African women still are illiterate.

• According to the latest projections, between 1990 and 2005 the fastest increases in literacy rates amongst adult women will be in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States. In both regions over that period, the percentage of adult women who are literate will have risen by 19 percentage points from 41% in 1990 to 60% in 2005 in Sub-Saharan Africa and from 37% to 56% in the Arab States.

• Since 1985 in general there have been more female students than male in higher education in the most developed countries. By contrast, in the world's least developed countries, only 1 in 4 students at this level are women.

• Throughout the world, in the scientific domains female students are well represented in nursing and biology, though they are still underrepresented in maths, physics, chemistry and especially engineering. On a global scale, there are higher percentages of women studying education or the humanities at university than any other subject.

• In the world women represent 94% of pre-primary school teachers, 58% of primary school teachers and 48% of secondary school teachers.

         UNESCO  Institute for satistics

·Note: The figures on literacy are the latest UIS estimates (available since February 2000) and differ slightly from those found in the 1999 UNESCO Statistical Yearbook.