There are approximately 650 million primary-school-age children and 370 million children of lower secondary school age in the world today. If children of pre-primary school age are included, the total rises to 1.4 billion. Improving the futures of these children – whether they are poor, live in conflict situations, or face discrimination because of gender, disability or ethnic origin – is the most important reason to invest in education. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 26) states that education is an inherent right: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages” (United Nations 1948).
Recent history has shown that considerable progress in achieving education for all can be made with concerted efforts, as enrolment rates have climbed, particularly in countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which had very low levels of access in the early 2000s.
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS Data Centre), between 2000 and 2012, the percentage of out-of-school children among primary-school-age children has declined from 40 per cent to 22 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and from 20 per cent to 6 per cent in South Asia.