CONFINTEA VI Mid-term Review 2017: The Status of Adult Learning and Education in Asia and the Pacific; Regional Report

Adult learning and education policies and practices should be closely aligned with developments in school education. A quick survey of the state of education in the region reveals that significant progress has been made in providing basic education to all children. However, the achievements are noticeably uneven across sub-regions. For example, around 16 million primary-school-aged children and around 34 million lower-secondary-aged adolescents in the Asia-Pacific region are not in school; two-thirds of these are in South Asia (UIS, 2015). Outof-school children are an important concern as, barring special intervention, they are likely to remain non-literate as they grow into adulthood.