GDP and geography: effects on education in Qatar and Iraq
However, in some nations, gender equality seems close, at least statistically. Consider the individual case of Qatar. As shown in Table 5, the percent of male and female students attending early childhood education there is equal (40.8 percent).
Meanwhile, in Iraq, a much larger country than Qatar, there is substantial variation. This MICS map (Table 6) represents the percentage of primary school aged children that are currently attending their first year of primary school, in Iraq in 2006 by governorate. The darker areas represent areas of relatively high attendance compared to the lighter areas. It is important to understand school attendance in Iraq by different geographical areas, since Iraq is not a homogeneous nation: its different regions are home to different social, cultural, and religious sects, which accordingly have different economic backgrounds. Each of these factors impacts the availability of education to the children in these areas. The large western governorate and the central regions, which are primarily Sunni, and most of the northern governorates, which is primarily Kurdish, have fairly high attendance rates, as well as high petroleum and chemical resources. However, the densely populated Salahuddin region, as well as the majority of the south which is mostly Shiite and relatively devoid of resources, have much lower percentages.
Meanwhile, Table 7 represents the percentage of net attendance rate in secondary schools in Iraq in 2006. Overall, 48 percent of secondary school aged children are not in school, but this figure is 58 percent for females. It is also important to note that in the northern oil-rich Kurdistan region, the figure is much smaller, at 30 percent, while in the poorer Southern and Center governorates, it is higher, at 53 percent. This indicates that while Iraqi girls are, overall, less likely to be in school than Iraqi boys, there may be variations in this gender inequity in TABLE 7 different regions of Iraq.
