The report — Back to School? — said poor countries are “teetering on the brink of an education crisis”.
Of the five countries at the bottom of the list, four are in Africa, and three of those are in East Africa. The ranking rated Somalia, Eritrea, Haiti, Comoros and Ethiopia at the bottom five based on access to basic education, teacher-student ratio, and educational provisions for girls.
Even Kenya, considered successful compared to its East African neighbours, had to delay free education to 9.7 million children over the last year due to budgetary constraints, the report said.
The report was produced by Education International, Plan International, Oxfam, Save the Children and VSO.
World leaders meet at UN headquarters in New York this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals.
One of goals was for universal primary education, and the world’s school children have seen much progress over the last decade. The UN says the number of children not in school has dropped from 106 million in 1999 to 69 million in 2008.
Sub-Saharan Africa has seen its classrooms fill over the last decade, though the continent still accounts for almost half of the total of unenrolled children. In 1999, 58 per cent of African children were enrolled in primary school. By 2008 the figure was 76 per cent.
The Global Campaign for Education is calling on leaders meeting this week to make education funding a priority so that the target of universal access to primary education is met by 2015.
