With women at the helm of education, more girls learn and prepare to become the leaders of tomorrow

Globally, 327 million more students are in school today than in 2000, a 30 per cent increase. Yet 273 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school in 2024, with rural girls and those from the poorest households at the highest risk. In rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Senegal, fewer than 6 girls complete upper secondary school for every 10 boys. In Angola, Mozambique and pre-war Sudan, among the poorest households, at most 3 girls complete upper secondary school for every 10 boys. Where women lead in education, system performance and learning often improve. Further, female political leaders tend to prioritize education more than male peers; higher shares of women in parliament track greater education spending, improved primary completion rates and progress towards gender parity in school enrolment[1]. In 2026, 64 per cent of parliamentarians in Rwanda are women, and gender equality is embedded across education policies, curricula and textbooks. Students across diverse schools demonstrate high awareness of gender equality. Evidence from India also shows that women’s political representation drives better educational outcomes, such as increased primary education completion in urban areas. In West Bengal, quotas for women leaders in village councils helped to close the gender gap in adolescent educational attainment. Some evidence suggests that schools led by women principals achieve better learning outcomes than those led by men. In francophone Africa, students in primary schools with female principals outperformed those in schools with male principals in mathematics and reading by the equivalent of at least six months of learning.

Yet women’s presence in education leadership is still far from parity and has recently declined. The share of women education ministers at the global level reached 31.8 per cent in 2024 before slipping to 28.7 per cent in 2026[2]. Even in school leadership, the share of female principals in primary and secondary education is, on average, at least 20 percentage points lower than the average share of female teachers. Only 11 per cent of countries globally takes specific measures to advance gender diversity in recruiting principals. Having more women in leadership today is critical, translating into more girls in education and leadership tomorrow.