Children out of school: Global trend 1999-2008
68 million children of primary school age were out of school in 2008 according to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) . Compared to 1999, when 106 million children were out of school, this is a decrease of over 38 million (see Figure 1). However, in spite of the observed progress over the last decade, the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015 will not be reached if current trends continue unchanged. Figure 1: Children of primary school age out of school, 1999-2008 Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre , November 2010. The UIS also publishes data on the regional distribution of children out of school, but complete data are only available until 2007. 43 percent - 30.4 million - of all children out of school in 2007 lived in sub-Saharan Africa (see Figure 2). A further 25 percent - 17.7 million - lived in South and West Asia. These two regions combined accounted for two thirds of the global out-of-school population. The shar...