Global Education Digest 2012 : The impact of grade repetition and early school leaving

The 2012 edition of the Global Education Digest from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics examines two persistent obstacles to universal primary education: high rates of grade repetition and early school leaving.
The report finds that globally 32.2 million pupils repeated a grade in primary education and 31.2 million left school before achieving the last grade of this education level in 2010. Pupils who are over-age for their grade – due to late entry and/ or repetition – are at greater risk of leaving school early. Girls are less likely than boys to enter primary school, but boys face greater risks of repeating grades and leaving school early. Children with the least opportunities – arising from poverty and compounding disadvantages – are most likely to repeat grades and leave school early. These shortcomings have
meant lost opportunities for children, especially the poorest, as well as unfulfilled investments made by families and governments. The costs are both indirect – in terms of children’s developmental opportunities and life chances and, at the broader community level, in terms of poverty, slow economic growth and poorer public health status – and direct, with education systems spending much time, energy and resources on children who repeat grades or leave school without successful learning.