273 Million People Remain Outside School Gates: Global Education Equity Stuck at "Completing Schooling"
Introduction
As 2030 approaches, global education is facing a challenging reality: in the past two decades, more children have been brought into schools, but the promise of "education for all" still seems far away.
The latest "Global Education Monitoring Report 2026" released by UNESCO focuses on the theme of "Access and equity", which means educational opportunities and fairness. Behind this title lies an important shift in the global education development stage. In the past, when people talked about educational fairness, the first thing that came to mind was "whether children have access to education"; today, the issue is not only about getting into school, but also about staying in school, progressing through the grades, completing the education, and ultimately turning the educational experience into real development opportunities.
This report does not simply paint a bleak picture of global education. On the contrary, it acknowledges that the educational expansion in the past generation has been real and significant. Since 2000, the number of students in the global primary education stage has increased by 327 million, pre - school education has grown by 45%, and post - secondary education has grown by 161%. More countries have extended the duration of compulsory education, expanded the scope of free education, promoted pre - school education, developed higher education, and tried to include more disadvantaged groups in the education system through financial subsidies, school grants, school meals, transportation support, scholarships, etc.
However, the same report also warns that global education has entered a more difficult phase. In 2024, there were still 273 million children, adolescents, and young people out of school globally. If we consider the underestimated population in countries with severe conflicts, the actual pressure may be even greater. Meanwhile, although the global high - school completion rate has increased from 37% in 2000 to 61%, at the current rate, it may take until 2105 for the global high - school completion rate to reach 95%.
This is also the most noteworthy aspect of the report for the education industry. Global education is not without progress; rather, the progress has entered a more challenging stage. The next stage of educational fairness is not just about continuously increasing the average enrollment rate, but also about testing whether the education system can identify and support those who are most difficult to serve. In other words, the key to future education development is no longer just building more schools and increasing the enrollment rate, but ensuring that children in different situations can be continuously supported and truly complete the entire education cycle.
Global education is not stagnant; rather, the "low - hanging fruits" of "universal education" are decreasing
To understand today's global education, we should first avoid a simplistic judgment: just because the 2030 goal is difficult to achieve, the global education agenda has failed.
This is not the case. In the past two decades, the global education system has indeed undergone a large - scale expansion. More children have entered primary schools, more adolescents have entered secondary schools, more young people have entered higher education, and more and more countries have incorporated educational fairness into their legal and policy frameworks. From this perspective, the international education agenda is not meaningless. It has at least promoted three things: countries have formed common goals around education universalization, educational data has been continuously collected and made public, and countries at different development stages have a reference for comparison.
The problem is that the speed of upgrading global education goals has exceeded the speed of expansion of many countries' education systems. Around 1990, the focus of the international education agenda was on universal primary school enrollment; after 2000, primary school completion became a clearer goal; in 2015, the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals further proposed that all children and adolescents should complete fair and high - quality primary and secondary education. The continuous upgrading of goals means that the education system is no longer just dealing with the issue of "getting into school", but also taking on tasks with longer cycles, higher costs, and more complex support.
This also explains why today's global education presents a contradictory state: on the one hand, the scale of education continues to expand, and the number of students globally is at a historical high; on the other hand, the number of out - of - school people is still large, and there has even been a rebound in some areas. The expansion of education has not stopped, but the remaining problems become more difficult to solve as it progresses. Those who are not stably covered by the education system often drop out of school not due to a single reason, but are affected by multiple overlapping difficulties.
For poor families, even if tuition fees are waived, transportation fees, meal fees, school uniform fees, teaching material fees, accommodation fees, and the opportunity cost of children not being able to participate in family labor may still pose obstacles to continued schooling. For children in remote areas, the distance to school, road conditions, teacher stability, and education quality all affect their ability to continue their studies. For children in conflict - affected areas, the destruction of school buildings, family displacement, and lack of security may make education a luxury. For children with disabilities, ethnic minority children, and migrant children, whether the system accepts them, whether the school has the ability to support them, and whether the curriculum and language are suitable will all determine whether they can truly enter and integrate into the education system.
This means that global education has entered a new stage. In the past, building schools, recruiting teachers, and waiving tuition fees often led to a significant increase in the enrollment rate; today, to continue to improve educational fairness, more hidden, complex, and structural inequalities need to be addressed. The low - hanging fruits are becoming fewer, and the remaining problems are more difficult to notice and solve with a single policy.
This also provides inspiration for the Chinese education industry. China has basically solved the problem of large - scale "access to education", but issues such as the construction of county - level high schools, the quality of rural boarding schools, inclusive pre - school education, inclusive education for special children, educational connection for migrant children, and the attractiveness of vocational education essentially correspond to the same proposition: educational fairness is not just about improving the average, but about whether the education system can respond to differences at a more detailed level.
The real challenge is no longer just "getting into school", but staying in school, progressing, and completing the education
If "enrollment" is the first step in education universalization, then "completion" is where educational fairness is truly tested.
For a long time, global education progress has been mainly measured by the enrollment rate. An increase in a country's primary school enrollment rate often means progress in education universalization. However, as education goals have extended from primary school enrollment to secondary school completion, simply looking at enrollment is no longer enough. A child entering primary school does not mean he can successfully complete primary school; entering junior high school does not mean he can finish high school; even if he enters high school, without stable learning support, family financial support, and a safe environment, he may leave before completion.
An important reminder in the report is that secondary education completion is becoming one of the biggest challenges for global educational fairness. Although the global high - school completion rate has significantly increased compared to 2000, there are still a large number of young people who have not completed secondary education. More notably, in some low - income and lower - middle - income countries, phenomena such as late enrollment, grade repetition, and over - age enrollment are still common. This means that many students, even if they eventually complete a certain education stage, often graduate many years later than the official graduation age; and the older they are, the more likely family economic pressure, labor needs, marriage and child - bearing pressure, and social environment influence will pull them out of school.
This shows that the observation perspective of educational fairness must shift from "whether children have access to education" to "whether they complete their education". The responsibility of the education system has changed from providing a seat to providing a sustainable path.
In this process, secondary education is particularly crucial. The primary school stage is often regarded as a basic public service, with strong social consensus and more sufficient policy support; but after entering the secondary school stage, the cost of education increases, the distance to school becomes longer, the learning difficulty increases, and the family's expected return on continued education also changes. For poor families, if the direct benefits of children's education are not obvious and the cost of continued schooling continues to increase, dropping out of school or entering the labor market prematurely will become a realistic choice. For students in rural and remote areas, whether they can enter high - quality junior and senior high schools and whether they can get accommodation, transportation, nutrition, and learning support will also affect whether they can ultimately complete their education.
This is why "preventing school drop - outs and ensuring school attendance" cannot be simply understood as persuading students to return to school. The real difficulty lies in that the reasons why children leave school cannot be simply explained by "not valuing education". Poverty, learning setbacks, an unfriendly school environment, narrow channels for further education, insufficient attractiveness of vocational education, family care pressure, peer relationships, and psychological states may all affect whether a child continues to study.
In this sense, the education completion rate is a more comprehensive indicator than the enrollment rate. It reflects not only school supply but also family support, social security, public transportation, nutrition and health, community safety, and local governance capacity. Whether a child can complete their education often depends on whether the public services outside the education system are stable enough.
In the context of China, a similar structural change can be seen. In the past, the main task of China's education development was to universalize nine - year compulsory education and solve the problems of large - scale out - of - school and drop - out students; today, the new challenges are more concentrated at the key transition points of the education chain: preparation from kindergarten to primary school, connection from primary school to junior high school, diversion from junior high school to senior high school, choice between higher education and vocational education after high school, and connection with the job market after graduation. Each transition may become a node where the gap between students from different family backgrounds is magnified again.
Therefore, the core of future educational fairness is not only to guarantee access but also to guarantee the process. The education system needs not only the ability to recruit students but also the ability to identify risks, provide continuous support, and reduce drop - outs.
From pre - school to higher education, inequality of opportunity runs through the entire education cycle
In the past narrative of educational fairness, basic education has often been the most concerned part. However, this report reminds us that educational inequality does not only occur in primary or secondary schools but runs through the entire education cycle. It may start as early as the pre - school stage and will continue to exist in new forms after the popularization of higher education.
Pre - school education is the first key starting point.
In the past, pre - school education was often regarded as a preparatory stage before basic education, or even as part of family care or social welfare. However, from the perspective of educational fairness, it is increasingly becoming the first threshold for educational opportunities. Whether a child has had stable, appropriate, and high - quality early learning experiences before entering primary school will affect his language development, social adaptation, learning habits, and subsequent academic performance. In other words, pre - school education is not an optional early training but an important foundation that affects the long - term education path.
The report makes a notable reminder about pre - school education indicators: the proportion of 5 - year - old children "in the education system" in some countries does not necessarily mean they have truly received pre - school education. Because some children may have entered primary school early, which makes the indicators look more optimistic but does not mean they have received sufficient pre - school preparation. That is to say, the real coverage and service quality of pre - school education may be more complex than the surface data.
This reminds us that pre - school education fairness cannot be measured only by the enrollment rate but also by service quality, affordability, urban - rural differences, and supply forms. For urban middle - class families, pre - school education has long been incorporated into more detailed parenting and education plans, with language enlightenment, art enlightenment, science enlightenment, physical development, and social - emotional ability training being advanced; but for children in poor, rural, and remote areas, the most basic inclusive pre - school education opportunities may still be insufficient. The earlier the education stage, the easier it is for family resource differences to directly translate into children's development differences.
Therefore, the expansion of pre - school education cannot rely solely on the traditional model of building kindergartens. For mountainous areas, pastoral areas, sparsely populated areas, and migrant families, fixed kindergartens are not always the most effective supply method. Some countries have covered remote children through community - based services, mobile kindergartens, short - term pre - school programs, and family support plans, indicating that the more it is targeted at disadvantaged groups, the more flexible the education services need to be. Fairness does not mean that all places adopt the same model, but that children in different situations can get the support suitable for them.
In China, pre - school education is also at a noteworthy turning point. On the one hand, changes in the birth rate are reshaping the kindergarten industry, with some cities and regions facing a decline in the number of students, adjustments, and even closures of kindergartens; on the other hand, structural short - boards have not completely disappeared, and some counties, rural areas, and areas with large population mobility still need more stable, inclusive, and high - quality pre - school services. The core issue of future pre - school education may no longer be simply expanding the number of kindergartens but re - allocating resources among inclusive policies, population changes, integrated childcare and education, and urban - rural balance.
Higher education is another stage worthy of attention.
In the past, when talking about higher education, many countries first focused on whether they could expand enrollment opportunities. With the popularization of higher education, more and more young people have entered universities, colleges, or vocational education institutions. However, the problem has also changed: enrollment does not equal graduation, and graduation does not equal obtaining high - quality development opportunities. Who can successfully complete higher education, who can enter higher - quality institutions and majors, and who can turn their degrees into employment and social mobility opportunities are becoming new propositions for higher education fairness.
The report warns that the traditional gross enrollment rate of higher education tends to overestimate the progress because it reflects the number of people entering the system but cannot fully indicate whether students ultimately complete their studies. Especially in the context of more diverse higher - education paths, more flexible learning cycles, and the continuous development of online education and micro - certificates, how to measure the real acquisition of higher education has become a new monitoring challenge.
The Chinese case is representative here. In the past few decades, the scale and speed of China's higher - education expansion have been remarkable globally. The report mentions that the number of students in China's higher education increased from 3.9 million in 1990 to 7.4 million in 2000, 31 million in 2010, and reached 61 million in 2024. The expansion was not achieved through a single path but through a diversified structure including regular undergraduate education, vocational education, adult education, online education, and postgraduate education. The report also points out that the popularization of China's higher education does not mean homogenization but scale expansion through diversification and stratification.
This expansion has greatly changed the educational opportunity structure for Chinese young people and promoted the transformation of higher education from an elitist to a popular and universal model. However, after the significant increase in opportunities, new fairness issues have emerged: differences between different levels of institutions, regional distribution differences of higher - education resources, social recognition of vocational education, the match between majors and employment, and the return on family education investment will all affect whether the expansion of higher education can truly translate into social mobility.
It can be seen that educational fairness does not automatically disappear with the universalization of a certain stage. The more a stage of education is universalized, the more likely the fairness issue will shift from "whether there are opportunities" to "the quality of opportunities". In the basic education stage, fairness is manifested in whether students can enroll and complete their studies; in the higher education stage, fairness is further manifested in the type of institutions, major selection, graduation quality, employment channels, and social recognition.
Fairness does not occur naturally; the key lies in how resources flow and how schools support students
The most policy - relevant aspect of this report is that it links educational fairness to financial and institutional capabilities.
Often, educational fairness is easily presented as a matter of concept, rights, or opportunities. However, what really determines whether fairness can be achieved is how resources are allocated. An increase in the education budget is of course important, but if the newly added resources are simply distributed evenly or continue to flow to regions, schools, and students with better original conditions, it may not narrow the gap and may even consolidate the original advantages in an already unequal system.
The report's analysis of fairness - oriented financing is very crucial. In the past 25 years, more and more countries have started to use various mechanisms to support disadvantaged groups, including transferring resources to local governments, providing subsidies to schools, providing financial assistance to