About 98 million children between the ages of 6 and 18 in Africa are still out of school.
According to current UNESCO data, the global ‘out of school children’ within the same ages stands at 244 million.
The data points out that 40 percent of the worldwide figure live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya are cited as countries with highest out of school child population on the continent.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization data scored Nigeria with 20.2 million, Ethiopia 10.5, DR Congo 5.9 and 1.8 million for Kenya.
UNESCO recounted that more than 400 million children were not in school during the period of 2000.
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It further revealed that though regional disparities may persist, yet the gender gap for male and female school going children has almost ‘’narrowed to zero’’.
Girls were much likely to be out of school around the year 2000 than boys.
The global education and cultural institution welcomed the progress over the past two decades despite the substantial slow pace in recent years.
UNESCO called for collective efforts in resources mobilization to ensure that each child’s right to accessible and quality education in not neglected.
UNESCO has aided member countries develop benchmarks that track progress of countries efforts towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 4[universal access to quality education.
