Close to 11 million Filipino children and youth are currently not attending school, with the majority opting out of pursuing higher education.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), out of the 42.8 million Filipinos aged five to 24 years, 10.7 million individuals are categorized as out-of-school children and youth.
These figures were derived from the 2020 Census of Population and Housing conducted by the PSA.
The data indicated that males make up 16.48 million (51.4 percent) among the population not currently attending school, while females account for the remaining 15.59 million (48.6 percent).
The out-of-school population is predominantly concentrated in the 20 to 24 age group.
Of the 9.97 million individuals within this age bracket, 73.6 percent (7.3 million) are not currently enrolled in school, while only 26.4 percent (2.6 million) are actively pursuing education.
In the age group of 15 to 19 years, 1.66 million youths were out of school, accounting for 15.9 percent of the total. The majority, comprising 8.8 million or 84.1 percent, were enrolled in educational institutions.
Conversely, the age group of 10 to 14 had the lowest percentage of out-of-school children at 3.5 percent, while the age group of five to nine had 11.7 percent of children not attending school.
According to the PSA, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) recorded the lowest school attendance rate at 64.5 percent.