Out-of-school rate for children of primary school age

What you should know about this indicator
- Many children and adolescents around the world are not in school, even though they are old enough to be. This indicator shows how many are missing out on education at each stage of the system.
- It measures the share of individuals in the official age range for a given level of education who are not enrolled at that level or in any higher level.
- These children or adolescents may have never entered school, may have dropped out, or may be starting later than expected.
- The indicator is calculated by subtracting the number of enrolled individuals in a specific age group from the total population of that group, and expressing the result as a percentage.
- High out-of-school rates signal barriers to access — such as poverty, gender inequality, location, or limited availability of schools — and highlight where more targeted support is needed.
- The data comes from administrative school enrolment records and household surveys, which provide age-specific insights when compared to population estimates.
- As with all education data, results should be interpreted carefully. Differences in how enrolment is defined, inconsistencies in age reporting, and timing of data collection (such as during holidays or late in the school year) can affect accuracy.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Out-of-school rate for children of primary school age”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250716-141306/grapher/share-primary-school-age-out-of-school.html [online resource] (archived on July 16, 2025).
How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Full citation
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Out-of-school rate for children of primary school age” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved July 19, 2025 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250716-141306/grapher/share-primary-school-age-out-of-school.html (archived on July 16, 2025).