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How many children are in school right now?
An estimate of how many school-age children are alive worldwide, built from the under-15 populations of all 194 countries profiled here.
Modelled continuously from UN vital rates.
Roughly 1.3 billion children worldwide are in the 5–14 age band, and a little over half of them are sitting in a classroom at any given moment during the school week.
How this number is built
This is a stock, not a flow: it counts children in the 5–14 age band rather than children physically in a classroom at this second, which varies by time zone and school calendar. It is derived from the same under-15 data used across the country pages.
What it cannot tell you
It counts children of school age, not children who are actually enrolled. Eleven of the 189 countries with a published figure report secondary completion below 25%, so age and attendance are very different numbers.
Full derivation on the methodology page. Where we model a figure rather than cite a published one, we say so — please do not present model output as a measured statistic.
Since you opened this page
Free for any site, commercial or not. An attribution link back is the only condition.
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Frequently asked
How many school-age children are there in the world?
Roughly 1.3 billion children are in the 5–14 age band worldwide.
Does that mean they are all in school?
No. This is an age band, not an enrolment figure. Secondary completion ranges from about 9% to over 100% across the 189 countries with a published figure — the measure is a gross enrolment ratio, so it can exceed 100.
Which country has the most school-age children?
India, followed by China and Nigeria.
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