CEDAW/C/GC/36 articles and relevant existing GRs to establish the correlation between the right to education and the enjoyment of other rights enshrined in the convention. 19. The target users of this GR include: all state officials tasked with the formulation and implementation of legal and policy decisions pertaining to public and private education at all levels: academia and researchers; student, teacher and parent associations; parliamentarians, non-governmental organisations engaged in girls’ and women’s education; traditional and faith-based organisations; media; and, corporate organisations and trade unions. E. Addressing gender based discrimination in education 20. The CEDAW Convention is the International Bill of Rights for Women and serves as binding international law for the 189 States that have, as at June 2017, ratified it. Article 10 addresses women’s and girls’ legal right to education and calls on States parties to ‘take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in order to ensure them equal rights with men in the field of education’. It thereby requires States parties to eliminate discrimination against women in education throughout the life cycle and at all levels of education. To meet the criterion of non-discrimination education must be accessible, in both law and practice, to all girls and women, including those belonging to disadvantaged and marginalized groups, without discrimination on any prohibited ground. 21. Article 1 of the CEDAW Convention defines discrimination as ‘any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field’. States parties, therefore, are not only required to ensure that education is recognised as a human right but also that appropriate conditions are created for this right to be fully and freely enjoyed and exercised by girls and women. 22. In specifying situations and requirements by which States parties must ensure the realisation and enjoyment of the right for men and women on an equal basis, Article 2 of the Convention reaffirms both negative and positive obligations. Its central core is the prohibition of discrimination. This implies that States parties must refrain from interfering, directly or indirectly, with girls’ and women’s full enjoyment of their right to education - the obligation to respect. Similarly, States parties must take positive steps to fulfil - by ensuring rights to, within and through education for the full development of girls’ and women’ s potential on an equal basis with men. 23. The numerical gains that girls and women have made in the field of education, in some regions of the world, conceal the continuing discrimination they face in spite of the existence of formal legal and policy frameworks intended to promote de facto equality. The protections contained in formal equality instruments are effective only if enforced in keeping with provisions set out in articles 1 and 2 of the Convention. 24. The Committee recommends that States parties institute the following measures to respect, protect, and fulfil girls’ and women’s rights to, within and through education: a) enhance compliance with article 10 of the Convention and raise awareness in society of the importance of education as a fundamental human right and the basis for the empowerment of women; b) integrate age appropriate education on women’s human rights and the CEDAW Convention in school curricula at all levels; c) undertake constitutional amendments and/or other appropriate legislative action to ensure the protection and enforcement of girls’ and women’s rights, to, within and through education; d) enact legislation that makes provision for the right to education, throughout the life cycle for all girls and women, including all disadvantaged groups of women and girls; 5