ESSA News Round-up

A Long Road to Education.

According to the latest figures from UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics one in five young people still don’t go to school.

There are still around 262 million children and adolescents around the world who are falling outside any schooling system.

Despite a global commitment to provide primary and secondary education for everyone by 2030 as stated in the Sustainable Development goals, progress is still slow with the numbers of children outside school remaining more or less static for years.

In each age group girls come off worst. At primary school level some 58.4 million young girls are out-of-school compared to 42.5 million boys. At secondary school -level more than 146 million girls are out-of-school along with some 129 million boys.

The crisis in education is most critical in sub-Saharan Africa which has the highest numbers of out-of-school children. The continent currently accounts for more than half of the world’s children who have no access to education.

UNESCO’s Silvia Montoya commented: “This is not good enough. Every child out of the classroom represents wasted potential and lost opportunities.”

“The world has promised to get serious about this issue, and governments gathered at the UN General Assembly have every opportunity to do just that. They cannot ignore the problem or side-step the urgent need to act”.

There are now just twelve years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal – on these latest figures there is little optimism that the target to provide education for all children will be reached.

For more statistics and details please visit Global Partnership for Education website.