AMERICA - School Education: 22 million children do not go to school or drop out of school

Caracas (Agenzia Fides) - Although there are 117 million school age children in Latin America and the Caribbean, millions of them still do not have a chance to go to school. Over 22 million children and adolescents in fact do not attend school or are at high risk of dropping out of school. According to the latest statistics, 6,000,000 and 500,000 of them do not attend school and 15 million 600 thousand attend lessons in non-appropriate, discriminate contexts, and make them particularly vulnerable. In recent decades several initiatives have been promoted to improve the quality and level of equality in education, to cope with poverty and discrimination, with the aim of promoting social inclusion. However, there are still many obstacles that cause the late entry of many children in the education system. In addition, indigenous children and adolescents, Afros with disabilities or who live in rural areas are those who major risk not going to school. According to local sources, in remote areas of some countries, secondary school attendance reaches a maximum of 50%. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 23/10/2012)