The number of children, adolescents and youth who are excluded from education fell steadily in the decade following 2000, but UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) data show that this progress essentially stopped in recent years.
The total number of out-of-school children, adolescents and youth has remained nearly the same at around 264 million for the past three years. Some 61 million, or 23% of the total, are children of primary school age (about 6 to 11 years), 62 million, or 23% of the total, are adolescents of lower secondary school age (about 12 to 14 years), and 141 million, or 53% of the total, are youth of upper secondary school age (about 15 to 17 years) (herein children, adolescents and youth, respectively).
