SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Quality primary
education mitigates
the risk of illiteracy
CLOSING IN ON UNIVERSAL PRIMARY
EDUCATION
Asia-Pacific has made significant progress towards
universal primary education—enrolling
approximately 91 percent of children aged 5 to 12
in 2013, comparable to levels in North America,
but beneath those in Europe. Net enrolment rates
ranged from close to 88 percent in the Pacific
to 97 percent in East Asia. South Asia, which
had enrolment rates of 78 percent in 1999, had
almost achieved universality by 2013 (Table
3.2). Though both East Asia and South-east
Asia have seen little progress since 2000, they
were already close to universality. Only a few
countries remain below 90 percent: Federated
States of Micronesia, Nauru, Pakistan, Papua
New Guinea and Solomon Islands. 11
Globally, improvements in gender parity
have been substantial (Table 3.2). 12 Among all
regions, only the Pacific small island developing
states, the Arab States and sub-Saharan Africa
have yet to achieve parity, but they too have
registered significant progress since 1999. More
than 20 Asia-Pacific countries in the region had
reached gender parity by 2013. 13 Only Afghanistan,
with a net enrolment rate for girls of 64
percent, 14 and Pakistan of 66 percent 15 still have
large gender gaps.
Once children are enrolled in primary school,
an additional challenge is to keep them there.
Globally, the number of children without primary
education fell by almost half in the last
decade. In 1999, South Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa accounted for three-quarters of the world’s
out-of-school population of 106 million. Since
then, South Asia has achieved the fastest decline
of all regions, cutting by more than half
the number out of school. 16 Nonetheless, more
than 10 million children in South Asia and 17
million children across Asia-Pacific are still not
in primary school. While 98 percent of children
in East Asia complete primary school, only 64
percent do in South Asia, and 51 percent in
Pacific small island developing countries (Table
3.3). Reasons for leaving school can include
pressure to work in impoverished families or a
perception that schools are poor in quality and
limited in relevance. A high risk of illiteracy is
one of many damaging consequences.
Apart from education being accessible, the
quality at all levels is also crucial, as some pol-
TABLE 3.2:
All regions have reached or are close to achieving universal primary education
86
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2015.
Note: The adjusted enrolment rate includes primary school age students who have reached secondary education earlier
due to promotion or other reasons.