Out-of-School Children

Referring to children who have never enrolled in school as well as those who did enroll but have subsequently dropped out of school, the category “out-of-school children” (OOSC) has become a fixture in global educational policymaking. Spurred by global efforts around United Nations (UN) Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Education for All, as [Page 1176]well as by the inclusion of universal primary schooling within the UN Millennium Development Goals, this category initially served as a placeholder for school-age children who were unenrolled. However, more recent reports on this category of children have expanded discussion beyond delineating empirical details and analysis on the multiple causes for the continuation of this phenomenon. Instead, this category has opened up to include consideration of factors that substantially aid ...