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250 million children out-of-school: What you need to know about UNESCO’s latest education data
New shows that the global number of out-of-school children has risen by 6 million since 2021 and now totals 250 million. The figures, compiled by the Global Education Monitoring Report and the , reveal that education progress continues to stagnate globally. As the reviews progress towards the 2030 Agenda, it is clear that countries must urgently take action to reverse this trend in order to meet their education objectives and commitments. Here is what you need to know about UNESCO’s latest data.
What is the main reason for the increase in out-of-school children?
This increase is largely due to the mass exclusion of girls and young women from education in Afghanistan but is also a result of the continuing stagnation in education progress across the world.
A recent survey taken in April this year by UNICEF found that there are 7.8 million children out-of-school in Afghanistan. Roughly half of children of primary school age are enrolled and only one-fifth of those of secondary school age.
Where are most of the out-of-school children?
Globally, 16 % of children and youth (covering primary to upper secondary) are not attending school. At primary level, 1 out of 10 children worldwide are not in school.
122 million, or 48% of the out-of-school population are girls and young women.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for close to 30 % of all out-of-school children globally. 1 out of 5 African children are not attending school (19.7%). Only half of children attend upper secondary school.
Out of school rate (%)
| Region | Primary | Lower secondary | Upper secondary | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central and Southern Asia | 8.6 | 14.3 | 39.3 | 20.2 |
| Eastern and South-eastern Asia | 4.2 | 8.4 | 17.0 | 8.4 |
| Europe and Northern America | 1.9 | 1.9 | 5.1 | 2.7 |
| Latin America and the Caribbean | 3.5 | 6.1 | 17.5 | 7.6 |
| Northern Africa and Western Asia | 9.4 | 9.3 | 21.3 | 12.2 |
| Oceania | 8.0 | 4.3 | 19.9 | 9.6 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 19.7 | 34.2 | 49.0 | 29.5 |
| WORLD | 9.4 | 14.4 | 30.1 | 16.1 |
Out-of-school population (in millions)
| Region | Primary | Lower secondary | Upper secondary | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central and Southern Asia | 15.8 | 16.2 | 57.6 | 89.7 |
| Eastern and South-eastern Asia | 7.2 | 8.2 | 15.8 | 31.6 |
| Europe and Northern America | 1.2 | 0.9 | 2.0 | 4.2 |
| Latin America and the Caribbean | 2.2 | 2.2 | 5.4 | 9.7 |
| Northern Africa and Western Asia | 6.3 | 2.8 | 5.9 | 14.9 |
| Oceania | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.7 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 35.9 | 28.6 | 34.0 | 98.4 |
| WORLD | 69.9 | 59.1 | 121.5 | 250.0 |
Will we achieve the 2030 goal?
If countries were on track to meet their national 2030 targets: ​
- 6 million more children would be in early childhood education​
- 58 million more children, adolescents and youth would be in school​
- 1.7 million more primary school teachers would have been trained​
​To get back on track:​
- 1.4 million need to be enrolled in early childhood education every year​
- A new child needs to be enrolled in school every 2 seconds until 2030;​
- Annual progress in primary completion rates needs to almost triple​
​The finance gap for countries to reach their SDG 4 targets totals US$ 100 billion every year and urgently needs to be filled.
Over 140 countries made solid commitments to transform their education systems at the Transforming Education Summit last year. 91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ just launched a new dashboard of country commitments and actions to transform education. The platform analyses a series of themes and aims to monitor countries’ actions undertaken against their national commitments. It will also facilitates cross-country learning and exchange of experiences.
What does the 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report say about progress made since 2015?
The 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report shows the progress made since 2015 against all SDG 4 targets based largely on the data of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, which is oversees 10 of the 12 global indicators.
It finds that between 2015 and 2021:
- Early childhood: The percentage of children one year younger than the official primary entry age who are in organized learning programmes has remained constant at 75%.
- Out-of-school: The out-of-school population fell by just 9 million, while it increased in sub-Saharan Africa by 12 million. And new data for 2022 show that the out-of-school population increased in 2022 to 250 million, largely due to the exclusion of girls and the resulting education crisis in Afghanistan.
- Completion: The completion rate increased from 85% to 87% in primary education, 74% to 77% in lower secondary education and 54% to 59% in upper secondary education.
- Learning: The average progress observed in reading at the end of primary education was just 0.4 percentage points per year, although 52% of children live in countries where there are not enough data points to estimate learning trends.
- Higher education: The tertiary education gross enrolment ratio increased from 37% to 41%, with women (44%) having a six percentage point gap over men (38%).
- Adult education: Among 57 mainly high-income countries, the participation rate of adults in formal or non-formal education and training fell by 10%, mostly as a result of COVID-19.
- Digital skills: Among 32 mainly high-income countries, 24 showed an improvement of at least five percentage points in the percentage of adults who can configure software.
- Gender parity: The number of young women completing secondary school for every 100 young men increased from 102 to 105 globally and from 84 to 88 in sub-Saharan Africa, which remains the region where young women face the largest disadvantage.
- Literacy: The adult literacy rate increased by 1 percentage point globally (87%) but by 4 percentage points in Central and Southern Asia (73%) and in sub-Saharan Africa (64%); still in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of illiterate adults climbed by 9 million.
- School infrastructure: The share of schools with electricity increased from 66% to 76% in primary education and from 88% to 90% in upper secondary education.
- Teachers: The percentage of trained teachers in primary education has remained almost stagnant at 86%. In sub-Saharan Africa\, the percentage of trained pre-primary teachers increased from 53% to 60%.
- Finance: Public education expenditure has remained constant at about 4.2% of GDP but the proportion of lower-income countries rose from 27% to 58%. Aid to education decreased by 7% from 2020 to 2021, while the share of aid allocated to education in aid budgets reached its lowest point since 2015, with only 9.8% dedicated to the sector in 2021.
