The Director General of UNESCO affirms that “education is in a state of emergency” and calls for urgent mobilization of States. The number of out-of-school children has increased: since 2021, there are six million more.
The number of children and young people out of school increased by six million worldwide from 2021to 250 million, in part due to the “massive exclusion” of girls and women from education in Afghanistan, UNESCO warned this Monday.
The increase is also linked to the “continued stagnation of progress in education around the world” and calls into question the achievement of one of the main UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.
In a statement released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), its director general, Audrey Azoulay, warns that “education is in a state of emergency” and calls for the urgent mobilization of States, “if they do not want to alienate the future of millions of children.”
“Although considerable efforts have been made in recent decades to ensure quality education for all, UNESCO data shows the number of out-of-school children is increasing“Azoulay stated.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 Call for quality education for all by 2030.. To achieve this, UNESCO experts consider that six million more children in preschool education, 58 million more children and young people in school and at least 1.7 million trained primary education teachers would be needed.
A year ago, at the United Nations Summit on Transforming Education, 141 countries have committed to transform their education systems to accelerate progress towards this goal.
According to Azoulay, for countries to achieve their goals, 1.4 million children must be enrolled annually in preschool education by 2030 and progress in primary education completion rates needs to be nearly tripled.
Since 2015, the percentage of children completing primary education has increased by less than 3 percentage points, to 87%. Meanwhile, the percentage of young people who completed secondary education increased by less than 5 percentage points, to 58%.
Source: Observadora
