All reports and publications
Analysis, evidence and policies to support all out-of-school children
Data is the cornerstone of the Out-of-School Children Initiative (OOSCI). It is the basis on which the initiative is able to make recommendations on policy and practices that will allow more children to attend school.
The Initiative has produced a number of resources with detailed information outlining the educational situation both regionally and in a country-specific context.

Workshop templates
Workshop templates
OOSCI branded workshop templates to be used by OOSCI national teams to develop presentations and process workshops. Four process workshop templates (Launch, Data and profiles, Barrier identification, and Policies and strategies) include a proposed workshop structure and content, which follow the agendas outlined in in the Operational Manual Annex…

Social media templates
Social media templates
OOSCI branded social media assets to be used by OOSCI national teams to publicize OOSCI-related events and disseminate national studies and related products. Available for download in image or PowerPoint format. Image files: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | X (formerly Twitter)

Data Inventory and Quality Assessment Tool
Data Inventory and Quality Assessment Tool
This tool is designed to produce a comprehensive overview of data sources available in the context of an out-of-school children study, assess the reliability of each, and identify important differences between them that may lead to different estimates of the number of out-of-school children and children at risk of dropout.

Updated OOSCI Operational Manual
Updated OOSCI Operational Manual
The Global Out-of-School Children Initiative (OOSCI) Operational Manual is both a how-to guide for teams conducting an OOSCI study, and a resource guide for the broader education community concerned with equity and inclusion. For teams conducting an OOSCI study, it presents an innovative and systematic approach to determine the best policies and strategies to reduce exclusion in education. It provides guidance on the analysis of multiple data sources to calculate the number and profiles of children, adolescents and youth out of school and at risk of dropping out. The Manual also provides methodology to identify the supply, demand, quality and governance barriers these children face in accessing and completing their education. For the broader education community, the Manual can be used as a toolkit, with a wide range of valuable analysis approaches, practical tools and resources relating to: education data, specific profiles of out-of-school children, barriers to education, as well as policies and responses. The Manual provides valuable guidance for policy-makers, researchers or other education stakeholders who are developing documents, policies or advocacy related to out-of-school children and children at risk of dropping out. The Operational Manual was revised in 2023 to reflect recent advances in statistical methodology and policy analysis, as well as to address global agreements and issues (ex. SDG4, COVID). The 2023 Manual also reflects the findings of the 2018 Formative Evaluation, partner stakeholder consultations and a review of previous OOSCI studies.

National Study on the Situations of At-Risk and Out-of-School Children in Ethiopia
National Study on the Situations of At-Risk and Out-of-School Children in Ethiopia
Despite commendable progress on expanding school access at the pre-primary, primary, and secondary school levels, educational disparities and high out-of-school rates persist in the Ethiopian education sector. Moreover, recent developments such as the global COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflicts, inter-communal violence, and humanitarian crises in the regions of Tigray, Benishangul-Gumuz (Metekel Zone), Oromia (west Guji Zone), and SNNP (Konso Zone) have impeded efforts to expand educational access in Ethiopia. To understand the current challenges and barriers that are driving out-of-school rates, UNICEF Ethiopia, in partnership with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education (MoE), contracted the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to provide consultancy services for a National Study on the Situations of Out-of-School Children (OSSC) in Ethiopia. The objectives of this study were to provide updates on the prevailing trends and profiles of out-of-school and at-risk primary and secondary students in Ethiopia, to highlight the factors that drive out-of-school rates, and to analyse the gaps in existing policies, strategies, and programmes that aim to improve school enrolment and retention. Ultimately, the study aims to help UNICEF, Ethiopia’s MoE, and other key stakeholders to more effectively address the barriers that keep children out of school. The findings of the study will also inform the implementation of the Education Sector Development Programme VI and the country’s 2020-2025 Country Programme Document.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children’s Learning in Indonesia
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children’s Learning in Indonesia
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on children’s learning across all education levels in Indonesia. This issue brief outlines the findings of monitoring on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the likelihood of children and adolescents continuing their education, with a focus on out-of-school children and those at risk of dropping out of school from socio-economically disadvantaged families. The results were collected through nationwide monitoring conducted by UNICEF and its partners across 354 districts in 33 provinces in Indonesia from September to December 2020. This issue brief also identifies some suggested actions to address the issues that have arisen due to the impact of the pandemic on the continuation of education for children and adolescents in Indonesia.

Burundi Country Study 2021
Burundi Country Study 2021
The objective of this study was to enable the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research to identify the bottlenecks and obstacles which not only prevent the schooling of children, but also the retention of children in basic education.

COVID-19 highlights an opportunity for out-of-school children
COVID-19 highlights an opportunity for out-of-school children
The COVID-19 pandemic has had potentially very serious consequences for many children whose education and development have been badly affected by repeated and/or protracted school closures. At its peak, nationwide school closures impacted more than 1.5 billion learners, or over 90 per cent of the world’s student population, from pre-primary to higher education. Schools for more than 168 million children globally have been completely closed for most of the last academic year, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The actual number is much greater if we include countries like India, for which exact numbers are not available due to partial sub-national re-opening of schools at different times of the year– but where 276 million children and youth were out of school for much of 2020. School closures have posed extraordinary challenges in terms of continuity of learning for many children, particularly those from marginalized groups. While COVID-19 has suddenly pushed huge extra numbers of children ‘out of school’, we must remember that the concept of out of- school children is not new. For millions of children, schooling has always been a dream they will never realize, solely because of who they are, where they are, where they were born, and the social and economic circumstances they find themselves in. This brief highlights how the response of education during the pandemic has revealed the possibilities, both digital and non-digital, to reduce the number of out-of-school children, including those who were already excluded before the COVID-19 crisis.

Analysis of Data on Out-of-School Children and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Madagascar
Analysis of Data on Out-of-School Children and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Madagascar
This study documents and analyzes the school exclusion of children of pre-primary to secondary school age in Madagascar, and of school children who are at risk of dropping out of school regardless of their age. This study is based on the use of the following available data sources: The third general population and housing census of 2018 (RGPH-3) The 2018 Multiple Indicator Cluster Household Survey (MICS) and Administrative data collected on an annual basis by the EMIS units of the various ministerial departments in charge of education The study is conducted following the guidelines of the conceptual framework and methodology of the Global Initiative for Out-of-School Children. It made it possible to estimate the proportions and numbers of out-of-school children and young adolescents, and children at risk of dropping out of school in Madagascar.

West and Central Africa Regional Report 2021
West and Central Africa Regional Report 2021
Ten years after the launch of the Global Initiative for Out-of-School Children (OOSCI), it should be noted that while progress has been made in the fight against school exclusion, the scale of what remains to be done is still considerable, in West and Central Africa in particular. Between 2010 and 2018 the rate of children and adolescents outside basic education (primary and lower secondary) decreased slightly from 33 per cent to 32 per cent. Due to the growth in the school-age population of 6-15 year olds during the same period, rising from 108 million to 137 million children and adolescents (i.e. an increase of 27 per cent), this slight reduction in the rate actually hides an increase of 8.8 million in the number of children and adolescents out of school in the region. In 8 years, between 2010 and 2018, this number has indeed increased from 31.6 million to 40.7 million. These figures, which are further aggravated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in 2020, invite a better understanding of the school exclusion factors as well as a better vision of their prevalence in the region, in order to develop appropriate public policies. This regional synthesis presents an inventory of the barriers to schooling as exposed by the national studies on children and adolescents outside of school conducted in 19 countries of the region between 2012 and 2019. All of these national studies have made it possible to take the measure of school exclusion through indicators and dimensions that each study has tried to implement as completely as possible without always succeeding. A list of barriers to schooling was however able to be drawn up for each country, with varying levels of detail concerning it. The data from these studies were supplemented by other sources.

National Study on the Magnitude of Out-of-School Children in Ethiopia
National Study on the Magnitude of Out-of-School Children in Ethiopia
The Ethiopian education system has faced many challenges in achieving access to quality education for all. As a result of efforts made over the last two and a half decades, remarkable improvements have been made. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought further challenges, as school closures have increased the number of out-of-school children (OOSC). Unless extra efforts are made, the country may not achieve its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), to which Ethiopia is a signatory. It is a critical time to meet the needs of OOSC throughout the country, through the design of evidence-based education modalities. The Ministry of Education (MoE) of Ethiopia, with financial support from the Luminos Fund, has conducted a study on the status of OOSC. The study has been conducted in two phases. The first phase provides a quantitative analysis of the evidence on OOSC before the COVID-19 pandemic. The second phase analyzes qualitative evidence on the effect of COVID-19 on OOSC throughout the country.

Jordan Country Report on Out-of-School Children
Jordan Country Report on Out-of-School Children
This report is a joint product of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and UNICEF in Jordan, drawing on the framework of the Global Out-of-School Children Initiative. The research reveals notable sector achievements and challenges associated with vulnerable children who are out of school and at risk of dropping out countrywide. The analysis shows that the national out-of-school rate for primary-school aged children (6-11 years) has not increased since 2014. This is a remarkable achievement by the MOE and its sector partners, given that Jordan has welcomed over 660,000 Syrian refugees since 2011.However, it also shows that disparities by gender, geography and nationality remain persistent in access to basic education. A total of 112,016 children in Jordan are not attending Grades 1 to 10. More than 50,640 Syrians, 39,830 Jordanians and 21,530 children of other nationalities are estimated to be out of school. Nationally, out-of-school rates are higher for boys than for girls, with the exception of Jordanians in the 6-11 age group, where girls have a higher out-of-school rate than boys. The report offers a range of analytics and insights, such as enrolment trends, profiles of out-of-school children, econometric analysis, barriers to schooling, and contextualised policy recommendations. These findings, underpinned by quantitative data, are envisaged to stimulate education policy dialogue amongst stakeholders and strengthen evidence-informed and equity-focused education planning and programming. We hope that the report helps government and partners to better target and support the most vulnerable children for inclusive and equitable quality education.