Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
5
INTRODUCTION
Poverty remains an issue for OIC member countries. On average poverty -as defined as
living under 1.90$ poverty line- is 25.2 percent in OIC member countries in 2010s (in 37
countries with available data) as opposed to 10.7 percent in the World in year 2013.3
Especially among lower middle-income and low-income member countries poverty is a more
persistent problem. On average poverty rate is 2.2 percent among upper middle-income
member countries, 18.4 percent among lower middle-income member countries and 45.7
percent among low-income member countries.4
Education is strongly linked with poverty. Higher levels of education lead to better life
outcomes in terms of health, life skills, job skills and earnings. However, inequality of
opportunities in access to education put children at a disadvantage from the beginning of their
lives by decreasing their chances to access education. Starting life with poor education outcomes
later turn into a higher likelihood of being poor. In fact, even ensuring a basic level of education
for all children would decrease poverty considerably. It is shown that if all children in low-
income countries learned basic reading skills when they are leaving school a g percent decrease
in world poverty could be observed.5
While OIC member countries improved access to education in the last two decades
inequalities remain in many countries in access to education due to the bottlenecks and
barriers. Overall gross enrolment rate in primary education is 101.5 percent on average in the
OIC member countries in 2014. Yet this average, masks the intercountry differences as well as
the differences in access to education of children born into different circumstances. Poor
children, children living in rural areas, girls (and sometimes boys), children not speaking the
instructional language in the country and disabled children are generally left behind.
Due to these circumstances that the children are born into and on which they have no
control of inequality of opportunities in access to education could be the case for children.
Inequality of opportunities is observed when these circumstances turn into barriers and
bottlenecks for children’s access. Effective policies and strategies developed by governments is
key to overcoming these bottlenecks and barriers and ensuring that all children could have an
equal start in life.
3 Data is obtained fromWorld BankWorld Development Indicators. The latest data for member countries is used in calculating
the averages.
4 Data is obtained fromWorld BankWorld Development Indicators. The latest data for member countries is used in calculating
the averages. No data was available for high-income countries while data is available for 8 upper middle-income member
countries (out of 16), 15 lower middle-income member countries (out of 18) and 14 low-income member countries (out of
16).
5 UNESCO (2014a)