Climate change dominates the agenda at this year's UN General Assembly (UNGA), but leaders and policymakers will also discuss the ambitious goals set by the world body for providing high quality education, as well as closing the gender gap in the field.

During the opening speech at the 74^th session of the UNGA, this year's assembly president Tijjani Muhammad-Bande said that those gathered must work to ensure that UN member states can work together on facilitating free access to quality primary and secondary education.

UN statistics show that over 265 million children are out of school, with a fifth of them of primary school age. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) stipulates that by 2030, the organization will ensure that all girls and boys have completely "free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education," and that both have access to early childhood development. It notes that resources and investments such as scholarships, teacher training, and improving water and electricity access will help with the provision of quality education to children in impoverished families.

The first SDG summit during the UNGA this week is the first of its kind since the adoption of the goals. For the event, it notes that even though there has been progress in educating young people, over 260 million youth between 6 to 17 years old were not in school in 2017. It also cites that about 22 percent of children were chronically undernourished last year.

Emerging economies such as China have made substantial improvements in accordance with the UN's development goals. A white paper on women's education in China notes that illiteracy rate among females aged 15 and above dropped from 90 percent before 1949 to 7.3 percent in 2017. The report released by the State Council added that the percentage of girls enrolled in primary and junior high schools were both around 46 percent that year, a boost of over 20 percentage points from 1951.

One area in which the proportion of women outweighed those of men were in higher education, where they account for 52.5 percent of students enrolled.

The UNGA, attended by over 90 heads of state, opened on September 17.