The Next Steps: Supporting Marginalised Learners to Transition to School Policy Brief

An estimated 272 million children and youth are currently out-of-school (UNESCO, 2025). Millions of these young people are accessing learning through non-formal catch-up, bridging or alternative learning programmes. Some of these are Accelerated Education Programmes (AEPs), which provide learners with equivalent, certified competencies for basic education, enabling them to either return to formal schooling at an appropriate grade level or transition into work or further training (AEWG, 2020).

However, for a transition to be successful, learners should not only enrol in formal school, they must also thrive within it. This means finishing at least their first year and completing up to the level desired. Yet this is not always the case; few AEPs track successful transitions, and of those that do, the rate varies significantly. Longitudinal tracking data was available for less than one-fifth (18%) of the 188 active AEPs analysed to develop this guidance. For the 40 programmes (active and closed) with available data, the rate of successful transitions ranged from three to 90%. We estimate that around 50% of learners entering AEPs successfully transition, defined by completing the first year of formal school; in crisis-affected settings that drops to just 40%.