The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for gender equality in education by 2005 has been criticised for its grandiose ambition, its failure to adequately conceptualise the nature of gender inequality or the diverse forms this takes, the inadequate policies developed to put the goal into practice and the limited measurements used for monitoring. The paper argues for a strategic defence of the MDG as an opportunity to think more widely about what the contents of rights in education are and how gender equality might be advanced. Drawing on the capability approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum it considers gender equality in education in relation to wellbeing and agency freedom and achievement. Utilising Thomas Pogge's taxonomy of institutional conditions for human flourishing the paper considers how global, national and local policy might better measure gender equality in pursuit of the MDG.