This report describes an array of country efforts, some quite effective, to achieve and go beyond gender parity in education. Many of these policies and programmes focus on the immediate school environment in which girls learn. Others focus on the informal and formal laws, social norms and practices that deny girls their right of access to, and completion of, a full cycle of quality basic education. The analyses and key messages in Gender and EFA 2000–2015: Achievements and Challenges deserve careful scrutiny as the world embarks on a universal, integrated and even more ambitious sustainable development agenda in the years to come.