India, which aims to become a significant economic power in the world, is still lagging behind in providing education to its children.
A recent study by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has placed India fourth from the bottom in terms of the number of children out-of-school.
However, the study also notes that India has also made a big progress in getting children into schools and as per the 2010-11 data, it has about 1.67 million children out-of-school.
This has helped in pushing the country up by one position to fourth bottom, with Ethiopia (1.7 million out-of-school children) taking its place.
Nigeria, with 10.54 million out-of-school children is at the very bottom of the list, while Pakistan comes second with 5.43 million.
India has consistently improved in providing basic education to the children from 2000, when 20 million children were out-of-school, to 2006, when the number came down to 2.3 million.
According to the study, at 10 per cent, the country also receives the largest share of aid to basic education globally.