Before the coronavirus crisis, projections showed that more than 200 million children would be out of school, and only 60 per cent of young people would be completing upper secondary education in 2030. Before the coronavirus crisis, the proportion of children and youth out of primary and secondary school had declined from 26 per cent in 2000 to 19 per cent in 2010 and 17 per cent in 2018. 617 million youth worldwide lack basic mathematics and literacy skills.
Some 750 million adults – two thirds of them women – remained illiterate in 2016. Half of the global illiterate population lives in South Asia, and a quarter live in sub-Saharan Africa. In 10 low- and middle -income countries, children with disabilities were 19 percent less likely to achieve minimum proficiency in reading than those without disabilities.
4 million refugee children were out of school in 2017
