Out-of-school children in Guinea-Bissau: A mixed-methods analysis

This paper analyses out-of-school children (OOSC) in Guinea-Bissau using a mixed-methods approach. The OOSC framework includes primary and lower-secondary school-aged children who have not yet entered school, children who will never enter school, and those who have entered but already dropped out. The descriptive summary shows a significant reduction in OOSC in the last 20 years. However, universal participation remains elusive due to a number of sociocultural and economic factors along with school supply and access constraints. Furthermore, the system is highly inefficient due to high repetition rates, and improvements in participation are somewhat misleading given the extensive amount of overage enrolment. The paper's main contribution to OOSC research is a detailed analysis of barriers and key bottlenecks based on an OOSC-focused qualitative data collection in six regions of the country.