A/RES/68/146 The girl child consider signing and ratifying or acceding to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 2 the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities3 and the Optional Protocols thereto 4 as a matter of priority; 2. Urges all States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) 22 and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) 23 of the International Labour Organization to consider doing so; 3. Urges all Governments and the United Nations system to strengthen efforts bilaterally and with international organizations and private sector donors in order to achieve the goals of the World Education Forum 24 and to implement the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, and calls for the reaffirmation and implementation of the commitments contained in the Education for All goals and the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those related to gender and education; 4. Calls upon all States to place enhanced emphasis on quality education, including communications and technology education, where available, for the girl child, including catch-up and literacy education for those who did not receive formal education, to promote access to skills and entrepreneurship training for young women and to tackle male and female stereotypes in order to ensure that young women entering the labour market have opportunities to obtain full and productive employment, equitable compensation and decent work; 5. Calls upon States and the international community to recognize the right to education on the basis of equal opportunity and non-discrimination by making primary education compulsory and available free to all children and ensuring that all children have access to education of good quality, as well as making secondary education generally available and accessible to all, in particular through the progressive introduction of free education, bearing in mind that special measures to ensure equal access, including affirmative action, improving the safety of girls on the way to and from school, ensuring all schools are accessible, safe, secure and free from violence and providing separate and adequate sanitation facilities contribute to achieving equal opportunity and combating exclusion and ensuring school attendance, in particular for girls and children from low-income families and children who become heads of households; 6. Calls upon States, with the support of international organizations, civil society and non-governmental organizations, as appropriate, to develop policies and programmes, giving priority to formal, informal and non-formal education programmes, including age-appropriate sex education, with appropriate direction and guidance from parents and legal guardians, that support girls and enable them to acquire knowledge, develop self-esteem and take responsibility for their own lives, and to place special focus on programmes to educate women and men, especially parents, about the importance of girls’ physical and mental health and well-being; 7. Urges States to acknowledge the different needs of girls and boys during their childhood and adolescence and, as appropriate, to make differential investments that are responsive to their changing needs; _______________ 22 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1015, No. 14862. Ibid., vol. 2133, No. 37245. 24 See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Final Report of the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26–28 April 2000 (Paris, 2000). 23 6/13