Despite significant improvements in female education throughout
the region, a large number of girls and women have been
left behind. According to the 2008 Egypt DHS, one-third of
married women ages 15 to 49 in Egypt had never been to
school. According to the UN database for the Millennium
Development Goals, one in five women ages 15 to 24 in Egypt
and Iraq is illiterate; in Morocco and Yemen, the figure is one in
three. Illiteracy, however, has been eliminated among youth in
Lebanon and Palestine, and it is close to eradication in several
other MENA countries.