UIS · Out-of-School Rate, Primary
Out-of-school rate (primary) by country
What share of primary-age children are not in school at all?
Of the 121 countries compared in 2024, United Arab Emirates had the lowest reading, 0.0039%, and South Sudan had the highest reading, 64.7347%. In the middle country the figure was 3.6908%.
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Part ofEducation & Knowledge
Out-of-school rate (primary) · 2024
Key statistic · Education & Knowledge
Lowest of 121United Arab Emirates
0.0039%012024 · position · derived
Who leads
The three countries at the lowest end of 121 compared, the three at the other end, and the first on each continent.
1Photo: Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0, greyscale
2Photo: * Original : Matthew Hadley (nickname diff_sky) derivative work: Ximonic , Simo Räsänen derivative work: Inkey · CC BY 1.0, greyscale
3Photo: Unknown author · CC BY-SA 2.0, greyscale
Highest in 2024
South Sudan64.7347%
Niger40.4124%
Burkina Faso34.2877%
Where a country sits says how it compares with the others measured, and nothing about why.
Lowest on each continent
- Africa
Togo0.6386% - Americas
Turks and Caicos Islands0.1334% - AsiaUnited Arab Emirates0.0039%
- Europe
Poland0.0917% - Oceania
Australia0.1243% - Every region
02Every measured country
Out-of-school rate (primary) on a map
Each country is shaded by its value, in five groups holding the same number of countries. Hover a country for its value, or select it to open its profile. Below the map, each continent’s middle country.
Darker is a lower value — the better end.
- 12.9337–64.7347%
- 5.1690–12.6031%
- 2.6245–4.9408%
- 0.9465–2.5318%
- 0.0039–0.8929%
- No reading in 2024 (86 measured in an earlier edition)
- Europe
1.3785%
the middle country, of 25 measured · 49 members
Poland0.0917%
Ukraine12.9337%Lowest and highest reading in Europe.
- Oceania
2.5309%
the middle country, of 13 measured · 21 members
Australia0.1243%
Solomon Islands30.1391%Lowest and highest reading in Oceania.
- Asia
3.6513%
the middle country, of 34 measured · 52 members
United Arab Emirates0.0039%
Lebanon22.5125%Lowest and highest reading in Asia.
- Americas
7.6976%
the middle country, of 25 measured · 48 members
Turks and Caicos Islands0.1334%
Curaçao27.8896%Lowest and highest reading in Americas.
- Africa
10.8904%
the middle country, of 24 measured · 55 members
Togo0.6386%South Sudan64.7347%Lowest and highest reading in Africa.
- Every region
21 sub-regions, lowest middle country first
- Western Europe
0.2564%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 9 members
Switzerland0.1430%
Austria1.4296%Lowest and highest reading in Western Europe.
- Northern Europe
1.3785%
the middle country, of 7 measured · 13 members
Lithuania0.1297%
Estonia3.3880%Lowest and highest reading in Northern Europe.
- Southern Europe
1.9973%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 17 members
Albania0.4876%
San Marino6.1321%Lowest and highest reading in Southern Europe.
- Eastern Europe
2.8083%
the middle country, of 7 measured · 10 members
Poland0.0917%Ukraine12.9337%Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Europe.
- Micronesia
2.9953%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 7 members
Palau1.3340%
Micronesia23.0581%Lowest and highest reading in Micronesia.
- Western Asia
3.6399%
the middle country, of 12 measured · 19 members
United Arab Emirates0.0039%Lebanon22.5125%Lowest and highest reading in Western Asia.
- South-eastern Asia
3.6513%
the middle country, of 8 measured · 11 members
Thailand0.5518%
Malaysia11.9696%Lowest and highest reading in South-eastern Asia.
- Southern Asia
3.9483%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 9 members
India0.1043%
Pakistan17.9322%Lowest and highest reading in Southern Asia.
- Caribbean
7.0124%
the middle country, of 13 measured · 24 members
Turks and Caicos Islands0.1334%Curaçao27.8896%Lowest and highest reading in Caribbean.
- Central America
8.4322%
the middle country, of 7 measured · 8 members
Mexico0.3632%
Honduras26.6202%Lowest and highest reading in Central America.
- Eastern Africa
8.6647%
the middle country, of 10 measured · 19 members
Mauritius0.7854%South Sudan64.7347%Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Africa.
- South America
9.2513%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 12 members
Chile2.1213%
Suriname16.2222%Lowest and highest reading in South America.
- Western Africa
15.7261%
the middle country, of 8 measured · 16 members
Togo0.6386%Niger40.4124%Lowest and highest reading in Western Africa.
- Australia and New Zealand
2 of 2 measured — too few for a middle: Australia, New Zealand.
Australia0.1243%
New Zealand2.6245%Lowest and highest reading in Australia and New Zealand.
- Central Asia
4 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan0.5657%
Kazakhstan6.4020%Lowest and highest reading in Central Asia.
- Eastern Asia
4 of 8 measured — too few for a middle: Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia, South Korea.
South Korea0.0557%
Macau10.7916%Lowest and highest reading in Eastern Asia.
- Melanesia
3 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu.
Fiji2.3934%Solomon Islands30.1391%Lowest and highest reading in Melanesia.
- Middle Africa
2 of 9 measured — too few for a middle: Cameroon, Chad.
Cameroon3.7617%
Chad24.8041%Lowest and highest reading in Middle Africa.
- Northern Africa
2 of 6 measured — too few for a middle: Algeria, Egypt.
Algeria1.5795%
Egypt3.5144%Lowest and highest reading in Northern Africa.
- Polynesia
3 of 7 measured — too few for a middle: Cook Islands, Samoa, Tuvalu.
Tuvalu0.5366%
Cook Islands2.5318%Lowest and highest reading in Polynesia.
- Southern Africa
2 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Lesotho, Namibia.
Namibia0.8655%
Lesotho32.1724%Lowest and highest reading in Southern Africa.
03The whole field at once
The spread
121 countries, one dot each, on one scale — further right is a higher value. Half the countries are above 3.6908%; a quarter are above 10.6771%, and a quarter below 1.3340%. The bar in each row marks that continent’s middle country.
Log scale: each gridline is ten times the one before, so countries of very different sizes can be seen on one line.
04All 207 ever measured
Every country
In order, highest value first — position 1 is the highest value, the way UIS’s own tables read. “=” marks a position shared with another country. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. The score is the both-sexes rate, which is why this indicator is not filed under gender: a country ordered by its total out-of-school rate has not been ordered by the distance between girls’ and boys’ lives, whatever the female and male columns beside it show.
Showing 25 of 207 countries
Values for 2024. The change column compares 2024 with 2023 only; the sparkline covers the recent editions.
051981–2024 · 32 editions
Over time
Each point is one edition. The series is ragged before 1999 and continuous from 1999 to 2024; a gap is an honest “too few countries reported”, not a hidden year.
- the middle country
- the middle half of countries
- each continent’s middle country
The same, year by year
| Year | Countries | Middle country | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 121 | 3.6908% | 1.3340% – 10.6771% |
| 2023 | 148 | 3.3932% | 0.9098% – 9.2245% |
| 2022 | 146 | 3.0016% | 1.1004% – 8.4779% |
| 2021 | 148 | 3.3301% | 0.9458% – 9.0521% |
| 2020 | 143 | 2.6785% | 1.1026% – 8.1711% |
| 2019 | 142 | 2.7581% | 1.1796% – 7.4346% |
| 2018 | 140 | 2.4393% | 0.9192% – 7.5413% |
| 2017 | 145 | 2.9068% | 1.2224% – 7.7221% |
| 2016 | 146 | 2.9540% | 1.2104% – 8.2510% |
| 2015 | 147 | 3.0524% | 1.2583% – 8.6170% |
| 2014 | 145 | 3.9042% | 1.3373% – 8.9274% |
| 2013 | 133 | 3.4127% | 1.1990% – 7.7489% |
| 2012 | 142 | 3.4078% | 1.2808% – 7.9128% |
| 2011 | 139 | 3.6264% | 1.1744% – 7.9631% |
| 2010 | 127 | 3.4907% | 1.0107% – 8.8367% |
| 2009 | 128 | 3.5774% | 1.2186% – 9.4768% |
| 2008 | 128 | 3.8784% | 1.0425% – 10.9894% |
| 2007 | 127 | 4.0286% | 1.0395% – 9.5694% |
| 2006 | 121 | 4.3379% | 1.1265% – 10.8760% |
| 2005 | 129 | 4.5712% | 0.8083% – 10.5780% |
| 2004 | 119 | 3.7915% | 1.0569% – 11.7567% |
| 2003 | 119 | 4.4116% | 1.0682% – 13.6138% |
| 2002 | 118 | 4.1440% | 1.0446% – 12.1343% |
| 2001 | 115 | 4.0506% | 0.6670% – 14.2064% |
| 2000 | 99 | 8.6420% | 3.0942% – 24.7170% |
| 1999 | 87 | 14.9073% | 5.2884% – 38.5312% |
| 1994 | 52 | 10.9571% | 5.1693% – 34.9965% |
| 1986 | 52 | 15.5213% | 8.7322% – 41.4526% |
| 1985 | 52 | 13.5978% | 7.8884% – 40.1984% |
| 1984 | 54 | 13.8405% | 9.4337% – 37.9323% |
| 1983 | 57 | 15.8317% | 9.7828% – 38.4649% |
| 1981 | 51 | 19.3558% | 9.1614% – 38.1134% |
062023 → 2024
Who rose and fell
The biggest changes in value between the two newest editions. Places are shown second, because they also move when other countries do.
Improved most
before → afterWorsened most
before → after- Curaçao3.4170% → 27.8896% · 74th → 6th+24.4726
British Virgin Islands15.4088% → 26.9663% · 22nd → 7th+11.5575
Bolivia4.1575% → 9.2513% · 68th → 35th+5.0938
Cayman Islands0.1336% → 5.1690% · 138th → 49th+5.0354
Saint Lucia2.0633% → 7.0124% · 88th → 41st+4.9492
107 countries were measured in both 2023 and 2024. The field changed from 148 to 121 countries, so a place can move for reasons that have nothing to do with the country itself.
07Across every edition
Out-of-school rate (primary) in records
The extremes of the statistic. A record reached by more than one country names none of them.
Highest reading on record
84.6955%
Out-of-school rate, primary age (%)
Lowest reading on record
Reached 13 times by 7 countries — shared, so no holder is named
0.0000%
Out-of-school rate, primary age (%)
Biggest improvement between editions
−23.3836
39.6058% → 16.2222%
Biggest decline between editions
+37.0725
4.7635% → 41.8360%
Most improved since first measured
−57.3215
79.7766% → 22.4551%
At the top most often
4 of 32
editions, alone at the first-listed end
08By sex
Inside the number
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) also publishes separate female and male readings. The gap between them, where both exist.
Of the 85 countries with both readings, the female reading is higher in 28, the male reading in 57. The widest gaps each way:
09The measure
About out-of-school rate (primary)
The out-of-school rate is the share of primary-age children in no school at all — not behind, not dropping out later, simply never counted in an enrolment register. It is the most direct measure there is of an education system’s reach.
What the number is: Out-of-school rate, primary age (%).
What it does not measure
It counts whether children are enrolled, not whether they attend regularly or learn once they are there.
10Where it fits
Connections
Its part in the Country Index, the statistics whose values line up most closely with it across countries, and others on the same subject.
In the Country Index
A key statistic for Education & Knowledge
“Primary-age children who are not in school at all: the floor of an education system.”
- Edition used
- 2024 (data 2024)
- Countries
- 192
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
Moves with
Where out-of-school rate (primary) is higher, these tend to be higher too.
- Out-of-School Rate, Lower Secondary AgeUIS · 110 countries in commonρ 0.72
- Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food InsecurityFAO · 82 countries in commonρ 0.61
- Gender Inequality IndexUNDP Human Development Report Office · 100 countries in commonρ 0.57
Moves against
Where out-of-school rate (primary) is higher, these tend to be lower.
- Frontier Technology Readiness IndexUNCTAD · 99 countries in commonρ −0.65
- Global Innovation IndexWorld Intellectual Property Organization · 87 countries in commonρ −0.62
- Expected Years of SchoolingUNDP Human Development Report Office · 113 countries in commonρ −0.60
Rank correlation (ρ, from −1 to 1) across countries, on each statistic’s newest edition, out of 293 statistics sharing at least 80 countries with this one. Two statistics that move together do not cause each other.
11Keep reading
Explore further
The subject
The countries at either end
12Questions
Out-of-school rate (primary): questions and answers
Which country has the lowest out-of-school rate (primary)?
United Arab Emirates, at 0.0039%, among the 121 countries compared in 2024.
Which country has the highest out-of-school rate (primary)?
South Sudan, at 64.7347%, among the 121 countries compared in 2024.
How many countries does the Out-of-School Rate, Primary cover?
121 in 2024, and 207 at least once across all editions. The number measured varies from 51 to 148 between editions.
What is the world average out-of-school rate (primary)?
This site does not calculate a world average, which would depend on how countries are weighted. In the middle country of the 121 compared in 2024, the figure was 3.6908%.
Is this UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)’s own ranking?
No. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) publishes the values but ranks nobody; the position on this page is derived by Nations Inquiry by ordering the published values, and equal values share a position.
How often is the Out-of-School Rate, Primary published?
This site holds 32 editions, describing 1981 to 2024.
Where does the data come from, and can I download it?
From UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), under CC BY-SA 4.0. From the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Editions reporting fewer than 50 countries are not written, which drops 1982, most of 1987–1998, and the 2025 stub UIS had opened with only 12 countries. Every edition is on this site’s Datasets pages as a full table, and downloads as a CSV file with every value unrounded.
13Method
Sources, method and citation
Source
Out-of-School Rate, Primary — UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
From the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Editions reporting fewer than 50 countries are not written, which drops 1982, most of 1987–1998, and the 2025 stub UIS had opened with only 12 countries.
Newest edition
Report year 2024Data year 2024
Cite the source as: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UIS Data Browser. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, checked 2026-09-05.
How this page reads the numbers
- UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) ranks nobody on this measure. The position is derived by Nations Inquiry by ordering the published values; equal values share a position.
- Which end is better follows the publisher’s own reading of the measure.
- A country is named at an end only when it holds that value alone. Where several share it, the page says how many and names none first.
- Values are stored exactly as published and trimmed only for display. “The middle country” is the median of the countries measured, not a world average.
The file itself, column by column — where it came from, what each column holds, and every edition as a CSV — is on its dataset page.
Photographs
The countries at the top of this statistic, from their profiles: Wikimedia Commons, shown in greyscale, each used under the licence named.
- United Arab Emirates — Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Azerbaijan — * Original : Matthew Hadley (nickname diff_sky) derivative work: Ximonic , Simo Räsänen derivative work: Inkey, CC BY 1.0
- South Korea — Unknown author, CC BY-SA 2.0
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Out-of-school rate (primary) by country: Out-of-School Rate, Primary, data from UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). https://nationsinquiry.com/statistics/out-of-school-rate