This cycle focussed on literacy, school enrollment, school attendance and drop-outs, costs of education, school conditions and characteristics of teachers. Females in Nepal have four times the risk that males did of being illiterate. Girls have two and a half times the risk of boys of not being enrolled into school. Once enrolled, school children rarely dropped out completely but frequently repeated grades. Key problems highlighted by this cycle were the gender gap of about 20% between boys and girls in school enrollment, the difficulties poor parents had to find the money for various school charges, the differing perceptions of parents and teachers for the reasons behind poor school attendance, and the relatively low level of training in teaching skills among the teachers. Female teachers were associated with higher attendance and lower repetition and dropping-out by both boys and girls.