educational lag is costly for the education systems of the region even bearing in mind that several countries have automatic promotion systems for the first few grades by years of age there is already a significant percentage of children who are two or more years behind the grade they should be in see figure ii according to unesco in the period the overall percentage of repeaters for all primary education grades was and the dropout rates for grades one through six were and respectively unesco b in nearly million children were not in school primary education completion rates are in urban areas but only in rural areas