The children left behind - Innocenti Research Centre

I n n o c e n t i R e p o r t C a r d 9 1
UNICEF
Innocenti Research Centre
Whether in health, in education, or in material well-being, some
children will always fall behind the average. The critical question
is – how far behind? Is there a point beyond which falling behind
is not inevitable but policy susceptible, not unavoidable but
unacceptable, not inequality but inequity?
There are no widely agreed theoretical answers to these
questions. Report Card 9 seeks to stimulate debate on the issue
by introducing a common measure of ‘bottom-end inequality’.
This permits each country’s performance to be assessed according
to the standard of what the best-performing countries have been
able to achieve. Such a standard may not represent the best that
may be aspired to in theory, but in practice it suggests a level
below which ‘falling behind’ is manifestly not inevitable.
The Report Card series is premised on the belief that the true
measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children
– their health and safety, their material security, their education
and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and
included in the families and societies into which they are born.
Its common theme is that protecting children during their vital,
vulnerable years of growth is both the mark of a civilized society
and the means of building a better future.
This ninth report in the series builds on previous issues by
focusing specifically on those children in all OECD countries
who are at risk of being left behind – of being neither included
nor protected – by the wealthy societies in which they live.