UNESCO: 264 Million Children Out of School
According to the latest United Nations report, more than one quarter of a billion children and adolescents have been denied education for various reasons. Furthermore, many children who do manage to enter school do not complete their education.
Children and adolescents dropping out of school and discontinuing their education have various causes. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in its latest report on the state of education worldwide, has identified disruptions to educational systems in some countries, the absence of schools, and the forced labor of children instead of schooling as major reasons for children and adolescents being left out of education.
“Spiegel Online” on Tuesday morning (October 24 / November 2) reported, citing UNESCO’s new report, that 264 million children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 are outside the educational cycle of their countries.
According to this report, 17 percent of children who enter school worldwide do not complete primary education. This rate reaches 55 percent in secondary education. Children and adolescents in Niger, Burkina Faso, Burundi, and South Sudan have the least chance of accessing and continuing their education.
With the publication of its latest report on the state of education worldwide, UNESCO has called on different countries to increase investment in their educational systems. According to the organization’s assessment, the level of investment in educational systems averages less than five percent of countries’ gross national product.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimates that providing a quality and equitable educational system worldwide requires an annual increase of 39 billion dollars in investment. This investment shortage reveals how far educational systems in various countries fall short of UNESCO’s standards.
Inequality and Discrimination Between Girls and Boys
One of the shortcomings that the UNESCO report highlights is gender inequality among children in accessing free education. Only in 66 percent of countries do girls and boys have equal opportunities to complete primary education. This situation exists in secondary education in only one quarter of all countries worldwide.
Gender inequality among teaching staff is striking, even in an advanced country like Japan. While 39 percent of primary school teachers in Japan are women, only six percent of educational units are managed by women.
In its latest report, UNESCO also addresses a familiar and longstanding problem: the inequality of opportunity for children from poor and wealthy families in accessing education, particularly in accessing higher education programs. UNESCO states this inequality is “significantly greater” in countries such as Panama, Macedonia, and Mongolia.
753 Million Illiterate People
According to “Spiegel Online,” among the results of UNESCO’s latest surveys, there are bright spots and reasons for hope: between 2000 and 2015, the number of adults unable to read and write decreased by four percent, and this rate among young people reaches 27 percent.
Nevertheless, 753 million people worldwide remain illiterate, representing approximately one tenth of the world’s population. Literacy rates vary significantly across different countries, and in countries south of the Sahara in Africa, less than 60 percent of the population can read and write.
UNESCO experts have stressed in their report that military attacks on schools have increased since 2004, especially in South and West Asia and North Africa, and in many of these areas, the existence of a quality educational system is practically inconceivable.
Source: DW
