CEDAW/C/GC/36 b) upgrade teachers’ knowledge and competence in the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and provide training in skills required to operate in an open learning environment; c) ensure that girls and women belonging to disadvantaged groups, those from rural communities and those with low levels of literacy are not excluded from these opportunities because they do not have access to the tools and the skills required for meaningful participation. Economic accessibility 36. Education has to be affordable to all, without discrimination based on sex or any other prohibited ground, and should be free and compulsory from pre-school up to the secondary system and progressively up to the tertiary level. Despite the existence of legislation providing for free education up to a stipulated age or grade level, in many States parties, auxiliary fees are imposed on students attending public schools to augment government subventions. Additionally, parents are faced with meeting the hidden cost of uniforms, transportation, textbooks and other school materials, lunch and various levies and user fees with students from the poorest quintile being most adversely affected and often stigmatised. 37. The monetization of access, through user fees, forces poor parents to choose which of their children to send to school and often show a preference for educating boys over girls. They decide on the basis of what they believe will be the maximum economic benefit to the family, over the long term, on their educational investment. Because of entrenched gender inequality, labour markets generally favour men. Parents, therefore, conclude that it is better to educate boys who are able, after schooling, to access better employment opportunities. Parents’ choices are also influenced by stereotypes that place girls in the domestic sphere. 38. In the context of economic crises, many States parties make cuts to social services and education is outsourced to private entities as well as provided by non-state organisations such as religious or community groups and/or NGOs. It has been established that privatization has specific negative consequences for girls and women and particularly girls from poorer families, excluding them from education. 39. The Committee recommends that States parties take all measures to ensure that user fees and hidden costs do not negatively impact girls’ and women’s access to education by instituting the following measures: a) provision of universal, free and compulsory education from pre-school up to the secondary level regardless of socio-economic status for citizens of the state as well as for girls and women with migrant and refugee status; b) affordable education at the tertiary level, by reducing user fees and indirect and opportunity costs; c) introduction of safety nets, and other measures to ensure that girls and women from lower socio-economic strata are not denied access to any level of education based on their inability to pay user fees and/or meet hidden costs; d) respect for the same standards regarding non-discrimination of girls and women as in public institutions as a condition for the right of private actors to run academic institutions; e) campaigns targeting parents and the wider society to overcome male preference for education and recognise the value of educating girls. Disadvantaged groups of girls and women 40. Many girls and women are excluded from education and are marginalised because of being simultaneously exposed to the intersection of different forms of discrimination as well as issues including lack of relevance of the curriculum and communication in non-native languages, exposure to violence and stigma; and poverty. Such disadvantaged or vulnerable groups include: 41. Ethnic minority and indigenous girls and women. The majority of girls not in primary school belong to ethnic minorities and other excluded groups. The main factors 9