Laura Poy and Alexia Villaseñor
La Jornada Newspaper
Friday, November 1, 2024, p. 7
In almost a decade, the world’s out-of-school population has reduced by only one percent, warns the World Education Monitoring Report 2024 of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). presented yesterday in Fortaleza, Brazil.
It is estimated that more than 251 million children and young people are out of classrooms. Of them, 71 million do not attend primary school; 57 million attend secondary school and 120 million do not attend high school. The report emphasizes that one of the main causes is the chronic underinvestment in education, especially in low- and lower-middle-income countries
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For this reason, the organization called on its member states to, in synergy with the G-20 Summit, chaired this year by Brazil, innovative financing mechanisms such as debt-for-education swaps are mobilized
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UNESCO emphasizes that while in rich countries only 3 percent of children are out of school, in the poorest nations the figure is 33 percent. Added to this is the fact that at least 650 million leave school without a secondary school certificate.
The report, Leadership in education points out that although the number of children and adolescents in school has increased by 110 million since the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on Education was adopted in 2015, with more children in school today than ever, in contrast to the decrease in those are still excluded from the classrooms is very slow.
It is confirmed, UNESCO points out, that one of the main obstacles to expanding access to quality education worldwide continues to be the lack of financing, since four out of 10 countries allocate less than 15 percent of their total public spending, and less than 4 percent of gross domestic product to education.
According to data released by the organization, more than half of out-of-school children and adolescents are from sub-Saharan Africa and highlights that while low- and middle-income nations spent only $55 per student in 2022, those in high incomes was a comparison with 8 thousand 543 dollars.
