Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age, both sexes (number) by country

Name: Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age, both sexes (number)
Creator: UNESCO Institute for Statistics
License: CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Open Data)

Number of children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age who are not enrolled or attending school during in a given academic year. For more information, consult the UNESCO Institute of Statistics website: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/

Countries reporting

149

Highest

6.94 million number

Ethiopia

Lowest

43 number

Iceland

Median

29,421 number

Years covered

1970–2019

Data points

4,726

What the numbers show

Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age, both sexes (number) is currently reported for 149 countries. The highest value is 6.94 million number in Ethiopia; the lowest is 43 number in Iceland.

The median across all reporting countries is 29,421 number, and the mean is 282,486 number.

Over the past decade 52 countries rose and 87 fell. The largest increase was in Latvia (up 14,653.8%), and the largest decrease in Sri Lanka (down 93.7%).

Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary: full country ranking

#	Country	Latest	Year	10-year change	Trend
1	Ethiopia	6.94 million number	2015	down 15.8%	falling
2	Indonesia	3.85 million number	2018	down 0.6%	falling
3	Niger	2.53 million number	2017	up 8.3%	rising
4	Mali	2.06 million number	2018	up 60.5%	rising
5	Chad	1.70 million number	2019	—	rising
6	Burkina Faso	1.65 million number	2019	down 10.7%	falling
7	Philippines	1.40 million number	2018	down 17.7%	falling
8	Syrian Arab Republic	1.38 million number	2013	up 197.7%	volatile
9	Mozambique	1.32 million number	2015	down 15.8%	falling
10	Côte d'Ivoire	1.27 million number	2019	down 39.2%	falling
11	Yemen	1.19 million number	2016	down 11.3%	falling
12	South Africa	1.13 million number	2018	up 100.0%	falling
13	Cameroon	1.00 million number	2016	—	rising
14	Guinea	941,384 number	2014	down 12.5%	flat
15	Myanmar	939,977 number	2018	down 55.1%	falling
16	Iraq	873,692 number	2007	down 26.7%	rising
17	Kenya	799,701 number	2009	down 63.1%	falling
18	Guatemala	632,232 number	2018	up 59.0%	falling
19	Mexico	620,544 number	2018	up 66.5%	volatile
20	Türkiye	600,962 number	2018	up 112.7%	volatile
21	Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of	557,327 number	2017	up 146.2%	falling
22	Jordan	518,520 number	2019	up 191.9%	volatile
23	Central African Republic	495,699 number	2012	—	rising
24	Malawi	400,638 number	2019	up 23.4%	rising
25	Burundi	397,516 number	2019	down 5.8%	falling
26	Honduras	385,445 number	2019	down 13.8%	falling
27	Eritrea	337,011 number	2018	up 129.1%	flat
28	Colombia	276,937 number	2018	up 16.4%	rising
29	Mauritania	266,322 number	2019	up 12.8%	rising
30	Ghana	243,537 number	2019	down 73.0%	falling
31	Togo	242,403 number	2017	down 15.3%	falling
32	Tunisia	237,231 number	1985	down 39.8%	falling
33	Germany	234,615 number	2018	up 17.3%	rising
34	Lao People's Democratic Republic	227,366 number	2019	up 22.1%	falling
35	Egypt	218,514 number	2019	down 84.4%	volatile
36	Malaysia	216,258 number	2017	down 29.2%	volatile
37	Romania	209,323 number	2018	up 245.0%	falling
38	Ukraine	207,725 number	2014	down 22.4%	falling
39	Cambodia	202,107 number	2015	down 73.4%	volatile
40	Thailand	197,452 number	2009	—	volatile
41	Morocco	186,968 number	2019	down 78.5%	volatile
42	United States of America	180,197 number	2018	down 74.0%	volatile
43	Iran, Islamic Republic of	174,303 number	2017	down 64.8%	falling
44	Bolivia, Plurinational State of	157,765 number	2018	up 3,578.4%	volatile
45	El Salvador	155,963 number	2018	—	rising
46	Paraguay	127,665 number	2012	up 51.7%	rising
47	Italy	124,491 number	2018	up 430.6%	volatile
48	Peru	100,389 number	2019	up 60.1%	volatile
49	Spain	96,979 number	2018	up 308.0%	volatile
50	Panama	84,669 number	2017	up 123.8%	rising
51	Puerto Rico	81,589 number	2018	up 37.7%	rising
52	Dominican Republic	78,411 number	2019	down 6.2%	falling
53	Nicaragua	74,847 number	2010	down 70.0%	falling
54	Bulgaria	74,375 number	2018	up 162.2%	rising
55	Poland	72,212 number	2018	down 71.7%	falling
56	Jamaica	71,992 number	2019	up 115.2%	rising
57	Djibouti	70,052 number	2015	down 44.6%	rising
58	Ecuador	69,274 number	2018	down 68.0%	volatile
59	Republic of Korea	63,528 number	2018	down 0.7%	volatile
60	Tajikistan	59,916 number	2011	down 66.3%	volatile
61	Azerbaijan	56,789 number	2019	down 61.1%	volatile
62	Uzbekistan	47,266 number	2019	down 84.0%	falling
63	Chile	45,458 number	2018	down 30.1%	falling
64	Republic of Moldova	44,908 number	2019	up 6.4%	rising
65	Libya	44,748 number	1983	down 41.6%	falling
66	Cuba	43,978 number	2019	up 4.1%	volatile
67	Lesotho	39,570 number	2016	down 32.4%	falling
68	Australia	39,079 number	2018	up 374.7%	volatile
69	Botswana	38,596 number	2003	up 37.5%	falling
70	Namibia	36,973 number	2007	down 40.1%	falling
71	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland	34,833 number	2018	down 57.3%	volatile
72	Armenia	34,172 number	2019	up 106.3%	rising
73	Eswatini	33,994 number	2015	down 15.9%	falling
74	Palestine, State of	31,846 number	2019	down 73.3%	falling
75	Hungary	29,421 number	2018	up 30.9%	volatile
76	France	29,089 number	2018	down 36.5%	volatile
77	Russian Federation	26,532 number	2018	down 87.2%	volatile
78	Zimbabwe	26,023 number	2013	down 93.0%	volatile
79	Slovakia	22,702 number	2018	down 12.0%	falling
80	Greece	21,904 number	2018	down 53.4%	volatile
81	Netherlands	19,656 number	2018	—	falling
82	Argentina	18,910 number	2017	down 70.4%	volatile
83	Timor-Leste	18,566 number	2019	down 54.0%	falling
84	Kazakhstan	17,080 number	2019	up 247.3%	volatile
85	Kuwait	15,450 number	2015	up 14.8%	volatile
86	Oman	14,359 number	2019	up 8.3%	volatile
87	Bahamas	14,213 number	2018	up 126.0%	rising
88	Bhutan	14,148 number	2018	down 61.9%	volatile
89	Kyrgyzstan	13,738 number	2019	down 76.8%	falling
90	Suriname	12,697 number	2015	down 26.8%	rising
91	Canada	11,505 number	2018	down 26.2%	volatile
92	Sri Lanka	11,114 number	2018	down 93.7%	volatile
93	Serbia	10,608 number	2019	down 28.8%	falling
94	Belarus	10,430 number	2018	down 14.1%	falling
95	Albania	8,663 number	2019	down 56.3%	volatile
96	Hong Kong, China	8,300 number	2018	down 37.4%	volatile
97	Cape Verde	8,099 number	2018	up 79.2%	falling
98	Czechia	7,764 number	2018	down 79.7%	volatile
99	United Arab Emirates	7,301 number	2017	—	volatile
100	Mongolia	6,558 number	2015	down 77.5%	volatile
101	Belgium	6,318 number	2018	down 71.7%	volatile
102	Qatar	6,122 number	2019	up 47.0%	volatile
103	Sao Tome and Principe	5,204 number	2015	up 249.0%	rising
104	Finland	5,004 number	2018	down 51.4%	falling
105	Bahrain	4,791 number	2019	down 59.8%	volatile
106	Costa Rica	4,639 number	2019	down 76.9%	volatile
107	Croatia	4,143 number	2018	down 40.0%	volatile
108	Vanuatu	4,065 number	2015	up 30.0%	volatile
109	New Zealand	3,998 number	2018	down 65.3%	volatile
110	Denmark	3,959 number	2018	down 1.1%	falling
111	Sweden	3,634 number	2018	down 87.4%	volatile
112	Mauritius	3,577 number	2019	down 27.5%	volatile
113	Belize	3,341 number	2019	down 33.5%	flat
114	Fiji	3,159 number	2012	up 19.3%	volatile
115	Israel	3,008 number	2018	up 126.5%	volatile
116	Switzerland	2,790 number	2018	down 81.1%	volatile
117	Portugal	2,780 number	2018	down 39.6%	volatile
118	Montenegro	2,435 number	2019	—	flat
119	Estonia	2,399 number	2018	up 3.9%	falling
120	Maldives	2,394 number	2019	—	falling
121	Georgia	2,038 number	2019	down 84.9%	volatile
122	Latvia	1,918 number	2018	up 14,653.8%	rising
123	Uruguay	1,240 number	2017	down 93.2%	volatile
124	Luxembourg	1,196 number	2018	down 0.8%	volatile
125	Austria	1,188 number	2018	down 93.1%	volatile
126	Slovenia	1,179 number	2018	down 6.4%	volatile
127	Ireland	1,041 number	2018	down 56.5%	volatile
128	Saint Lucia	969 number	2019	down 61.1%	volatile
129	Cayman Islands	966 number	2018	up 38.0%	rising
130	Norway	964 number	2018	down 81.7%	volatile
131	Barbados	763 number	2019	down 55.6%	falling
132	Tonga	729 number	2015	down 59.7%	falling
133	Grenada	691 number	2005	—	volatile
134	Macau, China	649 number	2019	down 91.1%	falling
135	Brunei Darussalam	616 number	2019	up 40.0%	volatile
136	Aruba	521 number	2009	up 259.3%	rising
137	British Virgin Islands	459 number	2018	up 378.1%	volatile
138	Lithuania	437 number	2018	down 33.2%	volatile
139	Samoa	416 number	2016	up 137.7%	volatile
140	Turks and Caicos Islands	403 number	2018	down 28.4%	volatile
141	Cyprus	402 number	2018	up 45.1%	volatile
142	Dominica	264 number	2019	down 84.8%	volatile
143	Seychelles	246 number	2019	up 117.7%	volatile
144	Malta	219 number	2018	up 39.5%	volatile
145	Antigua and Barbuda	126 number	2018	down 67.4%	volatile
146	Saint Kitts and Nevis	117 number	2016	up 192.5%	volatile
147	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	95 number	2017	down 75.7%	volatile
148	Liechtenstein	64 number	2018	down 39.6%	volatile
149	Iceland	43 number	2018	down 93.7%	falling

Regions and income groups

Aggregates are excluded from the country ranking above so that a region can never outrank a country.

World 119.56 million number
IDA & IBRD total 117.22 million number
Low & middle income 117.17 million number
European Union 1.01 million number
IDA total 80.66 million number
Middle income 78.30 million number
Sub-Saharan Africa 63.48 million number
Sub-Saharan Africa (IDA & IBRD countries) 63.48 million number
Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding high income) 63.47 million number
Lower middle income 60.04 million number
Pre-demographic dividend 58.62 million number
IDA only 51.73 million number
Least developed countries 50.38 million number
Early-demographic dividend 49.61 million number
Heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) 46.32 million number
Low income 38.87 million number
IBRD only 36.63 million number
South Asia 29.34 million number
South Asia (IDA & IBRD) 29.34 million number
IDA blend 28.86 million number
Upper middle income 18.26 million number
East Asia & Pacific 14.96 million number
East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income) 14.31 million number
East Asia & Pacific (IDA & IBRD countries) 14.01 million number
Arab World 11.91 million number
Late-demographic dividend 9.36 million number
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan 5.23 million number
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan (excluding high income) 4.95 million number
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan (IDA & IBRD) 4.92 million number
Latin America & Caribbean 4.01 million number
Latin America & the Caribbean (IDA & IBRD countries) 3.87 million number
Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income) 3.78 million number
OECD members 3.19 million number
High income 2.39 million number
Europe & Central Asia 2.26 million number
Post-demographic dividend 1.94 million number
Europe & Central Asia (IDA & IBRD countries) 1.61 million number
Europe & Central Asia (excluding high income) 1.32 million number
Small states 866,252 number
Other small states 717,040 number

Share, cite or embed this page

Cite this page

Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary by country. Statizoid, drawing on UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved 03 September 2026, from https://reference.statizoid.com/stat/out-of-school-children-and-adolescents-of-primary-and-lower-secondary-school-age-both/

Embed or link this data

Paste this into a page to link back to these figures. The data itself is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Open Data); please keep the attribution.

<a href="https://reference.statizoid.com/stat/out-of-school-children-and-adolescents-of-primary-and-lower-secondary-school-age-both/">Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary by country</a> — Statizoid

About this data

Indicator: Out-of-school children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age, both sexes (number)
Unit: number
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Open Data)
Coverage: 194 places, 4,726 data points, 1970–2019
Last refreshed: 21 August 2026