New UNESCO figures show 244 million children not attending school

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced that 244 million children are out of school in the world, a number that has been in continuous decline for more than 20 years, but it is still worrying.

“No one can accept this situation,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement. “Education is a right and we must do everything in our power to demonstrate that this right is respected for every child.”

Of the 244 million out-of-school children aged 6 – 18, 98 million, representing 40 percent of the total, live in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Nigeria (20.2 million), Ethiopia (10.5), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (5.9) and Kenya (1.8), according to UNESCO figures.

After the proportion of girls was higher than boys among out-of-school children in 2000 (2.5 percent in primary schools and 3.9 percent in secondary schools), UNESCO noted that the disparity “has fallen to zero” even if “local differences remain.”

By way of comparison, UNESCO recalled that more than 400 million children were not enrolled in school in 2000, praising the “progress” that has been made in this regard over the past two decades, even if the pace of this progress “has slowed significantly in recent years.”