ABSTRACT

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000, the third goal of which (Promote gender equality and empower women) shaped Education for All (EFA), sought to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and attain gender equality in education by 2015, with an emphasis on guaranteeing girls’ complete and equal access to, and achievement in, basic education of good quality. The approach for attaining this goal was to implement combined strategies for gender equality in education that acknowledged the necessity of transforming attitudes, values and practices. Responsible for this implementation were partnerships contextualised by MDG 8 (Developing a partnership for development), which evolved post-2015 as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 (Revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development), and aimed to reinforce the implementation processes and invigorate the global partnership for sustainable development (SDSN, 2015a). Efforts to attain MDG 3 and EFA Goal 5 occurred largely within an MDG 8 partnership environment. Unfortunately, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this partnership failed to accomplish this MDG/EFA goal – a goal not even comprehensive enough, owing to its exclusion of higher levels of education (UNESCO, 2015a).