Why are there more than 100 million children out of school today? Why do 40 percent of those children who are enrolled in primary schools in least-developed countries drop out? And why are girls most affected? Reducing poverty and achieving education for all are contingent upon eliminating child labor. The statistics tell their own story.

Facts
How people live on less than $1 a day?
More than a billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day. In 2001 an estimated 2.73 billion people were living on less than $2 a day - more than half of the population in the developing world.

Today there are over 238 million young people living on less than one dollar a day.⁴⁴

The numbers of poor people are greatest in South Asia, but the proportion of poor is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.⁴⁵

How many children are out of school (not enrolled in school)?
Worldwide, more than 100 million children of primary-school age are not enrolled in primary school. Huge numbers of them are child laborers. Most of them (57 percent) were girls! Huge numbers of them work as child laborers.

How many children complete school?
Another 150 million children who are enrolled in school will drop out before completing elementary school. - at least 100 million are girls.⁴⁶ Forty percent of children who enroll in primary school in the least developed countries drop out.⁴⁷ In developing countries 1 child in 3 does not complete 5 years of school, the minimum required for basic literacy.⁴⁸

Where are children out of school?
Almost all (94 percent ) of out-of-school children of primary-school age live in developing countries - mostly in South Asia (35 percent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (40 percent).⁴⁹ Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia together account for almost three quarters of unenrolled primary-school age children.⁵⁰

The proportion of out-of-school girls was higher in South and West Asia (62 percent) and Arab States (60 percent) than in other regions. ⁵¹

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⁴⁴ MDGs Youth Action Guide, the Millennium Campaign, TakingITGlobal and the Global Youth Action Network, available from http://www.millenniumcampaign.org/atf/cf/
%7BD15FF017-0467-419B-823E-D6659E0CCD39%7D/EN_ACTION_GUIDE.PDF; Internet accessed August 2005.
⁴⁵ World Bank data, available from http://www.developmentgoals.org/Poverty.htm; Internet accessed March 2005.
⁴⁶ What Works in Girls' Education, Barbara Herz and Gene Sperling, Council on Foreign Relations, 2004, p. 4.
⁴⁷ Education for All Week, 19-25 April 2004, UNESCO, available from http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/
ev.php-URL_ID=28702&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html; Internet accessed march 2005.
⁴⁸ 2000 A Better World for All, updated 8 January 2002, available from http://www.paris21.org/betterworld/education.htm; Internet accessed March 2005.
⁴⁹ World Bank data, available from http://www.developmentgoals.org/Education.htm; Internet accessed March 2005.
⁵⁰ 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO, 2004, p. 94
⁵¹ 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO, 2004, p. 94