“Combined with UNESCO’s recent news that aid to education has fallen yet again, the lack of progress in reducing out of school numbers confirms our fears – there is no chance whatsoever that countries will reach the goal of universal primary education by 2015,” said UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, in a press release on the launch of the agency’s new policy paper.

She is expected to present this new data at a press conference in Brussels today during a pledging conference organized by the Global Partnership for Education, where donors and countries are expected to renew their commitment to get all children in school and learning.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics produced the policy paper, which also shows that 15 million girls and 10 million boys, constituting around 43 per cent of those out of school, are unlikely to ever get access to primary education if the current situation remains the same.

“We cannot meet this news with further inertia. On the contrary, we must sound the alarm and mobilize the political will to ensure that every child’s right to education is respected” she declared.

The report underlines also how 17 countries have succeed in bringing education to their population and have successfully reduced the number of out-of-school children by almost 90 percent in a little over a decade.

The lack of global progress is largely due to high population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, now home to more than 30 million out-of-school children. Most of them will never start school and those who do are at risk of dropping out. Across the region, more than one in three children who entered the educational system in 2012 will leave before reaching the last grade of primary school, UNESCO says.

A makeshift primary school for students at the UNMISS displaced persons camp in Bor, Jonglei state, South Sudan. Photo: UNMISS/Mihad Abdalla