According to a report by the UN Educational and Cultural Organization (Unesco), around 273 million children and young people were not in school in 2024. This is the seventh year in a row that the number has risen. According to the report, the reasons for this are crises, population growth and a lack of financial resources. Unesco head Khaled El-Enany spoke of a worrying trend.
The trend is particularly strong in sub-Saharan African countries. Unesco cites a growing population as the main reason for this. Conflicts have also restricted educational efforts. More than every sixth child lives in an area affected by conflict. In the Middle East, for example, regional tensions have led to numerous school closures.
There is no one solution for all
According to Unesco, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to providing more children with an education. Rather, local circumstances must be taken into account. In some countries, however, compulsory education and laws against child labor have helped. Elsewhere, experts have observed that there is a connection between school meals or electricity supply and longer schooling for children and young people.
Even though more children have recently been excluded from school again, Unesco has seen considerable improvements in some cases since the turn of the millennium. In Madagascar and Togo, for example, the proportion of children not attending school has fallen by 80 percent since 2000. In Morocco and Vietnam, the same applies to young people. The figures have also fallen sharply in the Ivory Coast, Turkey and Georgia.
