Efforts at developing a framework to address the issue of children who are out of school were made during a UNICEF “Out of School Children” policy planning workshop.

The workshop provided participants with the opportunity to develop policies and strategies that will ensure every child has access to education.

Chief Education Officer, Marcus Edwards, said it is essential to identify the reasons why children are out of school.

“We do have provisions for Universal Secondary Education and universal access, but we need to attend to the issue of quality. The quality of the program, how learner-centered our programs are, and how relevant these programs are to the children’s needs are just as important.”

Deputy Representative for UNICEF, Muriel Mafico, reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to analyze the barriers that contribute to the children’s exclusion from education.

“UNICEF believes that in order to provide basic education for every child, new policies must focus specifically on the marginalized and excluded children as part of a larger effort to improve access to quality education. The workshop today is a critical step in taking the study forward by going beyond the statistics of enrollment.”

The “Out of School Children” initiative is a partnership between UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics with support from the Global Partnership for Education.