Reporter's Notebook

Jomtien, Thailand

As delegates to this year's Education International conference here pledged to step up their efforts to improve school attendance worldwide, the site of the meeting itself served as a striking reminder of just how big a challenge that will be.

It was in 1990 at this same resort city in Southeast Asia that the goal of achieving universal primary school enrollment by the end of the decade was announced at a world conference on education sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the World Bank, UNICEF, and the United Nations Development Program. Now, a year after that original deadline has passed, even those who made the commitment concede that the objective remains a distant hope.

According to the latest available figures, some 113 million children of primary school age worldwide are not in school, making for an enrollment rate of about 84 percent. And among the least developed countries, fewer than 60 percent of children who begin a primary education wind up staying in school...