Southeast Asian countries have the highest number of out-of-school children, according to the 2008 Education for All Global Monitoring Report to be launched by Unesco in Pattaya on Monday.

More than three million children do not attend school in Southeast Asia, according to the report.

Countries in the region facing the greatest challenge to address the problem are Vietnam with one million out-of-school students, the Philippines with 648,000, Burma with 487,000, Thailand with 419,000 and Indonesia with 414,000.

High repetition rates are also seen in Southeast Asia, particularly in first grade, due largely to a lack of early childhood education.

Cambodia and Laos have the highest repetition rates in Grade 1, at 24 per cent and 34 per cent, respectively. Both countries also have the lowest early childhood care and education coverage in the region, with only 9 per cent and 8 per cent of children aged three to five enrolled in pre-primary school, respectively.

The report also looks at gender disparities in primary education and secondary levels. The only countries to have equal numbers of boys and girls relative to the population enrolled at both primary and secondary levels are Indonesia, Burma and Singapore.

Cambodia and Laos recorded under-enrolment of girls, while in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, boys were under-enrolled.

The 2008 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report tracks countries' progress in meeting the EFA goals, an international movement agreed upon by 164 governments at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000.

The launch of the report is part of the Southeast Asia EFA Mid-Term Policy Review Conference where participating countries will make recommendations on policies and strategies to ensure the delivery of a quality education for all.

The 2008 EFA Global Monitoring Report will be launched at 9am at the Dor-Shada Resort in Jomtien. Over 40 high-level education ministry officials from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and Vietnam, as well as UN, NGO and development agencies' representatives, will attend.