Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

PROGRESS TOWARDS THE EFA GOALSUniversal primary educationGetting children into primary school is justa first step. Universal primary educationinvolves entering school at an appropriateage, progressing through the system andcompleting a full cycle. Unfortunately, millionsof children enter school late, drop out earlyand never complete a full cycle. Moreintegrated approaches to monitoring arerequired to measure the real state of progresstowards universal primary education.Out-of-school adolescents are oftenoverlooked. Monitoring progress towardsinternational development goals in educationfocuses on the primary school age group.The situation of adolescents has been subjectto less scrutiny. There are some 71 millionchildren of lower secondary school agecurrently out of school. Many have notcompleted a full primary cycle and facethe prospect of social and economicmarginalization. Counting adolescentsdoubles the global headline figure forout-of-school children.The section is divided into three parts. Part 1looks at progress towards one of the mostimportant requirements for achieving universalprimary education: getting all children into school.It looks beyond the headline numbers to explorethe characteristics of the out-of-schoolpopulation. Removing the barriers that keepchildren out of school is the first step towardsachieving universal primary enrolment – ensuringthat the entire primary school age group is inschool by 2015. Part 2 looks at enrolment trends.Part 3 examines the problem of retention andprogression through primary school, and thetransition to secondary education.Numbers of out-of-school childrenare declining, but not fast enoughMalina is a 12-year-old living in a rural area ofRattanak Kiri, a remote hill district in Cambodia.She is a member of a minority ethnic groupand has never been to school.Lucy, 12, lives in the slum of Kibera in the Kenyancapital, Nairobi. When she was 8, she enrolled inprimary school, but in the second grade shedropped out. She wants to go back to school buthas to take care of her brother, and her mothercannot afford the fees, uniforms and books.Victor is 14 years old. He lives on the streets ofManila and makes a living by selling newspapersat road junctions. He went to primary school forfour years, but left before completing it and hasno prospect of returning.Maria, 15, is in grade 4 of her local primaryschool in Panama, having started late, repeatedtwo grades and dropped out for a year whenshe was 12.Compared with the 1990s, the first decade of thetwenty-first century has been one of rapid progresstowards universal primary education. Out-of-schoolnumbers are falling and more children arecompleting primary school. Yet the sheer size of theout-of-school population remains an indictment ofnational governments and the entire internationalcommunity. Denying children an opportunity to puteven a first step on the education ladder sets themon a course for a lifetime of disadvantage. It violatestheir basic human right to an education. It alsowastes a precious national resource and potentialdriver of economic growth and poverty reduction.As the experiences of the children cited abovetestify, ‘out of school’ is a simple concept with manymeanings. Some children of late primary schoolage and even secondary school age have neverbeen to school. Others have started school butdropped out. Still others are in a state of flux,moving between in-school and out-of-school status.The out-of-school figures in this section refer onlyto children of primary school age who are not inschool. They represent the tip of the total out-ofschooliceberg, since they do not cover adolescentsof secondary school age who have not completedprimary school. Even within the primary school agegroup, data for any one year provide only a staticsnapshot of a dynamic and complicated picture.The snapshot for 2007, the latest year for whichdata are available, points to continued progressbut still large deficits. There are some remarkableachievements since 1999:Out-of-school numbers are falling. Worldwide,the number of children of primary school agewho are out of school has declined by 33 millionsince the Dakar pledges were made, from105 million in 1999 to 72 million in 2007.Seven out of every ten out-of-school childrenlive in South and West Asia, and sub-SaharanAfrica (Figure 2.7).There were72 million childrenout of schoolin 200755