CEDAW/C/GC/36 d) revising and developing non-stereotypical educational curricula, textbooks and teaching materials to eliminate traditional gender stereotypes that reproduce and reinforce gender-based discrimination against girls and women and to promote more balanced, accurate, healthy, and positive projections of female images and voices; e) instituting mandatory training of teaching staff at all levels of education on gender issues and gender sensitivity and the impact of their gendered behaviours on teaching and learning processes. G. The right of access to education 28. The right of girls’ and women’s access to quality education is based on the availability of adequate infrastructure to meet their needs. Without such availability the right of access is compromised. Where girls and women lack access to quality education they ultimately face major difficulties including lack of personal autonomy and choices including; control over their health and sexual and reproductive decisions; lower quality healthcare for themselves and their children; intergenerational poverty; and, lack of power-sharing and participation on an equal basis with boys and men in both the private and public domains. Ensuring this right warrants attention to physical, technological and economic access as well as access for disadvantaged groups and those in precarious situations. Physical Access: Availability of adequate infrastructure 29. Availability refers to providing functioning educational institutions and programmes in sufficient quantity to meet the needs of girls and women, within the jurisdiction of the State party, which are not differentially resourced by location (article 14) or any other factor. Further, access to educational institutions must be within girls and women’s safe reach, either by ensuring that they are accessible at some reasonably convenient geographic location or via modern technology. Proximity to schools, particularly in rural areas, is crucial given the prevalence of gender-based violence against girls and women in public spaces and the risk that females face travelling to and from school. School distance can constitute an important barrier to school attendance, especially in rural areas, where over 80 per cent of all out-ofschool children live. 30. Further, essential considerations in providing adequate infrastructure in educational institutions relate to barriers that the onset of menarche poses to girls’ successful completion of school. Lack of an enabling school environment including: inadequate gender segregated water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities, untrained or unsupportive staff, lack of appropriate sanitary protection materials and lack of information on puberty and menstrual issues, contribute to social exclusion, reduced participation in and focus on learning, and decreased school attendance. 31. The Committee recommends that States parties take the following measures to ensure availability of physical facilities for the education of girls and women: a) provide adequate budgetary, human and administrative resources to ensure that adequate provision is made at the primary and secondary levels to accommodate all girls in the respective population age cohorts; b) address imbalances in budgetary allocations for disadvantaged and marginalised groups of girls and women based on socioeconomic status, location, ethnicity, gender identity and religious persuasion; c) institute temporary special measures in keeping with Article 4 to increase the number of qualified teachers, particularly female where the teaching force is predominantly male, including through provision of appropriate and continuous training; d) monitor the implementation of girls’ and women’s right to education by regularly collecting data disaggregated by sex, location, age, school type and ethnic group on access indicators at all levels of education – number of females/males enrolled 7