About 20 million children in Nigeria are out of school, the highest figure in the world for a single country, according to newly-released data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Three countries were identified as having the highest number of children out of school: India, Nigeria and Pakistan. In other parts of Africa, Ethiopia has 10.5 million children out of school, the Democratic Republic of Congo has 5.9 million, and Kenya has 1.8 million, according to UNESCO.
The number of children out of school in Nigeria have fluctuated between 10.5 million and about 15 million for more than a decade.
UNESCO said there are “244 million children and youth between the ages of 6 and 18 worldwide (who) are still out of school.”
UNESCO announced the figures in a statement issued on Thursday. The organization also said a new and improved methodology was used to calculate the latest figures.
“The new estimates, published online by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, show that sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the most children and youth out of school with 98 million children and young people excluded from education. It is also the only region where this number is increasing; out-of-school rates are falling more slowly than the rate at which the school-age population is growing,” according to a statement from UNESCO.
More about the report and figures for out of school children in Nigeria and around the world can be found here.
