Out-of-School Children: A Contemporary View from the Pacific Island Countries of the Commonwealth

Abstract

This publication on out-of-school-children (OOSC) in the Pacific is a timely and important contribution to consider interventions to ameliorate educational disparities in the region. A contemporary view of the nine Pacific Island Countries (PICs) that are also members of the Commonwealth are captured as distinct case studies in the publication. These states have made some progress in strengthening their education systems and enabling more children to enrol in school, yet universal access remains elusive. Open schooling, broadly defined as utilising flexible approaches to learning based on the principles of open and distance learning, is presented as a means to reach more young people seeking learning opportunities in these PICs.