Year-over-year change: -3.9 pp, trend down
5-year change: -12.2 pp, trend down
Nepal
Out of school, lower secondary: 0.7%
View MorePercentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school
By country11ranked
19712025
2025
Rankings at a glance
Highest 10 · Percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school (2025)
Among the 11 countries with 2025 data, Algeria has the highest percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school at 77.57% in 2025, followed by Tokelau (61.63%) and Laos (36.27%). The Gambia (14.26%) and Kazakhstan (3.69%) close out the top 5. Next up, Kyrgyzstan (2.82%) and Nauru (2.78%). Uzbekistan (2.51%), Indonesia (1.9%), and Thailand (1%) round out the top ten. The gap across the top ten is wide: Algeria has 78× the value of Thailand (1%). Six of the top ten are in Asia, with three from South-Eastern Asia. Among these countries, Algeria saw the largest year-over-year change at +77.1 pp.
Rank changes
How percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school changed between 2020 and 2025
2020and2025
Historical trends
Key terms
- Literacy rate
- — Percentage of population who can read and write a short, simple statement about everyday life.
- Gross enrollment ratio
- — Total enrollment in a level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the eligible school-age population.
- Completion rate
- — Percentage of a cohort of children who complete a given level of education.
- Out-of-school rate
- — Percentage of children of official school age who are not enrolled in school.
- Pupil-teacher ratio
- — Enrolled pupils per TRAINED teacher at a given level of education. It measures how thinly trained teachers are spread, not average class size: the ratio rises when fewer teachers meet the training requirement, whatever happens to the number of pupils in a room.
- Educational attainment
- — Highest level of education completed by the population aged 25 and over.
Frequently asked questions
- Which country has the lowest percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school?
- Nepal has the lowest percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school among the 11 countries with 2025 data at 0.7% as of 2025, according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
- Which country has the highest percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school?
- Algeria has the highest percentage of lower secondary school-age children not attending school among the 11 countries with 2025 data at 77.6% as of 2025, according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics.