More children are out of school in poor countries
The rate and number of out-of-school children are strongly correlated with national income: in poorer countries, more children are out of school than in wealthier countries. The World Bank classifies all countries according to their gross national income (GNI) per capita ( World Bank, 2017 ). The map in Figure 1 shows the distribution of countries by income level according to the July 2016 classification. Low-income countries with the lowest per-capita income are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. Figure 1 Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics Figure 2 shows that the out-of-school rate decreases with increasing national income. Low-income countries have, on average, the highest out-of-school rates, according to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics . 19% of all children of primary school age (about 6 to 11 years) are out of school in low-income countries, compared to only 3% in high-income countries. Among adolescents of lower secondary school age (about 12 to 14...