At Global Pathways, we are committed to finding children with limited or zero opportunities to attend school.  Our vision is that every child, everywhere, can obtain a quality education.  To do this, we have to center our attention on solutions for the massive number of children who are unenrolled in school around the globe.  In developed countries, the net enrollment rate of children in primary school is 99%.  But for those in developing countries, the rate is about 83%.  Seventeen out of every hundred children are not enrolled in school, about 57 million children worldwide. Increasing the rate of enrollment is a critical area for improvement.  

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But we can not stop there.  We must also address the reality that children often remain out of school even when presented with the opportunity. Some families do not value the education offered to their children due to the poor quality of teaching or lack of educational resources.  Many children enrolled in school do not attend on a regular basis (attendance varies from 40%-80%) due to a myriad of factors.  Kids are often pulled out of school by parents to provide day labor to augment family income. Some kids miss days of school because transportation costs are too high.  For others, persistent illness decreases attendance significantly.   

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So we must look into the challenges of families and communities to learn which barriers exist that diminish enrollment, attendance, and quality in the community.  The only way to learn the reality is to take a close look at each system and dismantle those barriers, one at a time.

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