SANA'A, July 20 (Saba)- Some 46 percent of children do not enroll in schools, an official report said.

According to the report, 71 percent of girls in rural areas do not go to schools in spite of efforts exerted by the government to extend education across the country.

The report showed that there are 4.4 million students nationwide with majority of males.

One of the reasons of the big gap between education of boys and girls is the "hard" economic situation of the country, according to a study prepared by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF.

The ministry endeavored to tackle those reasons by setting up a department in the ministry for girls education to study means of reducing this gap between females and males.

Food assistance of World Food Program helped push girls to attend schools, Minister of Education Abdul-Salam al-Jawfi said.

Around 140,000 female students are benefiting from this assistance in 85 districts across the country, especially in rural regions.

AH/AM

Saba