education global

Global Education

By: Hannah Ritchie , Veronika Samborska , Natasha Ahuja , Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

A good education offers individuals the opportunity to lead richer, more interesting lives. At a societal level, it creates opportunities for humanity to solve its pressing problems.

The world has gone through a dramatic transition over the last few centuries, from one where very few had any basic education to one where most people do. This is not only reflected in the inputs to education – enrollment and attendance – but also in outcomes, where literacy rates have greatly improved.

Getting children into school is also not enough. What they learn matters. There are large differences in educational outcomes : in low-income countries, most children cannot read by the end of primary school. These inequalities in education exacerbate poverty and existing inequalities in global incomes .

On this page, you can find all of our writing and data on global education.

Key insights on Global Education

The world has made substantial progress in increasing basic levels of education.

Access to education is now seen as a fundamental right – in many cases, it’s the government’s duty to provide it.

But formal education is a very recent phenomenon. In the chart, we see the share of the adult population – those older than 15 – that has received some basic education and those who haven’t.

In the early 1800s, fewer than 1 in 5 adults had some basic education. Education was a luxury; in all places, it was only available to a small elite.

But you can see that this share has grown dramatically, such that this ratio is now reversed. Less than 1 in 5 adults has not received any formal education.

This is reflected in literacy data , too: 200 years ago, very few could read and write. Now most adults have basic literacy skills.

What you should know about this data

• Basic education is defined as receiving some kind of formal primary, secondary, or tertiary (post-secondary) education.
• This indicator does not tell us how long a person received formal education. They could have received a full program of schooling, or may only have been in attendance for a short period. To account for such differences, researchers measure the mean years of schooling or the expected years of schooling .

Despite being in school, many children learn very little

International statistics often focus on attendance as the marker of educational progress.

However, being in school does not guarantee that a child receives high-quality education. In fact, in many countries, the data shows that children learn very little.

Just half – 48% – of the world’s children can read with comprehension by the end of primary school. It’s based on data collected over a 9-year period, with 2016 as the average year of collection.

This is shown in the chart, where we plot averages across countries with different income levels. 1

The situation in low-income countries is incredibly worrying, with 90% of children unable to read by that age.

This can be improved – even among high-income countries. The best-performing countries have rates as low as 2%. That’s more than four times lower than the average across high-income countries.

Making sure that every child gets to go to school is essential. But the world also needs to focus on what children learn once they’re in the classroom.

Millions of children learn only very little. How can the world provide a better education to the next generation?

Research suggests that many children – especially in the world’s poorest countries – learn only very little in school. What can we do to improve this?

• This data does not capture total literacy over someone’s lifetime. Many children will learn to read eventually, even if they cannot read by the end of primary school. However, this means they are in a constant state of “catching up” and will leave formal education far behind where they could be.

Children across the world receive very different amounts of quality learning

There are still significant inequalities in the amount of education children get across the world.

This can be measured as the total number of years that children spend in school. However, researchers can also adjust for the quality of education to estimate how many years of quality learning they receive. This is done using an indicator called “learning-adjusted years of schooling”.

On the map, you see vast differences across the world.

In many of the world’s poorest countries, children receive less than three years of learning-adjusted schooling. In most rich countries, this is more than 10 years.

Across most countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa – where the largest share of children live – the average years of quality schooling are less than 7.

• Learning-adjusted years of schooling merge the quantity and quality of education into one metric, accounting for the fact that similar durations of schooling can yield different learning outcomes.
• Learning-adjusted years is computed by adjusting the expected years of school based on the quality of learning, as measured by the harmonized test scores from various international student achievement testing programs. The adjustment involves multiplying the expected years of school by the ratio of the most recent harmonized test score to 625. Here, 625 signifies advanced attainment on the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) test, with 300 representing minimal attainment. These scores are measured in TIMSS-equivalent units.

Hundreds of millions of children worldwide do not go to school

While most children worldwide get the opportunity to go to school, hundreds of millions still don’t.

In the chart, we see the number of children who aren’t in school across primary and secondary education.

This number was around 244 million in 2023.

Many children who attend primary school drop out and do not attend secondary school. That means many more children or adolescents are missing from secondary school than primary education.

Access to basic education: almost 60 million children of primary school age are not in school

The world has made a lot of progress in recent generations, but millions of children are still not in school.

The gender gap in school attendance has closed across most of the world

Globally, until recently, boys were more likely to attend school than girls. The world has focused on closing this gap to ensure every child gets the opportunity to go to school.

Today, these gender gaps have largely disappeared. In the chart, we see the difference in the global enrollment rates for primary, secondary, and tertiary (post-secondary) education. The share of children who complete primary school is also shown.

We see these lines converging over time, and recently they met: rates between boys and girls are the same.

For tertiary education, young women are now more likely than young men to be enrolled.

While the differences are small globally, there are some countries where the differences are still large: girls in Afghanistan, for example, are much less likely to go to school than boys.

Research & Writing

Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losing out because of this.

Access to basic education: almost 60 million children of primary school age are not in school, interactive charts on global education.

This data comes from a paper by João Pedro Azevedo et al.

João Pedro Azevedo, Diana Goldemberg, Silvia Montoya, Reema Nayar, Halsey Rogers, Jaime Saavedra, Brian William Stacy (2021) – “ Will Every Child Be Able to Read by 2030? Why Eliminating Learning Poverty Will Be Harder Than You Think, and What to Do About It .” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9588, March 2021.

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Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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UN chief calls for ‘dramatic shift’ to transform education worldwide

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The global crisis in education needs a “dramatic shift” to shape a more peaceful, sustainable and just world, the UN Secretary-General said on Thursday.

António Guterres was taking part in a  Special Event on Transforming Education – part of the on-going High Level Political Forum ( HLPF ) and looking ahead of the upcoming  Summit of the Future in September.

The event was a call to action, with the UN chief calling on all countries to make a concerted effort to establish genuine learning environments that will provide learning opportunities from childhood to adult stages.

“ Given the stakes, the world cannot afford to short-change education ,” Mr. Guterres said . “But by nearly every measure, that is exactly what we are doing.”

Global challenges

The UN chief said that around 84 million children are set to remain out of school by 2030 - unless action is taken to transform education worldwide.

That means that Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” is unlikely to be reached.

Currently, only a sixth of countries are on courses to achieve the SDG4 target of universal access to quality education.

Mr. Guterres also noted that completion rates at a secondary level are rising far too slowly, learners are not equipped with the skills they need to succeed in a changing world, and early childhood and adult learning are often seen as optional.

“It’s truly shocking that some 70 per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa are unable to read a basic text by age 10,” he said.

Financial roadblocks

The Secretary-General said that financing to provide quality education is also insufficient to meet the challenge.

In 2023, the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ) estimated that developing nations would need to invest $100 billion annually to achieve SDG4 . This amount increases by about 50 per cent when costs for the digital transformation of education are considered.

Further, Mr. Guterres said that four of every 10 people globally live in nations where governments spend more on debt servicing than on education or health.

He said that over 140 countries committed to turning this crisis around at the Transforming Education Summit in 2022.

But “progress is far too slow and uneven. Something has to change. ”

Poverty and gender

President of the General Assembly, Dennis Francis, echoed the Secretary-General’s statements on the need for transformation.

He recalled recent visits to South Sudan where he said he learned about the “dire poverty of education evident from the fact that at least 70 per cent of eligible children are out of school.”

He also noted that the denial of a girl’s right to education in Afghanistan and the inability to access education in Ukraine and Gaza due to constant attacks are clear indicators of an intractable crisis.

“Beyond access, we must ensure quality education for all fostering inclusive, equitable and lifelong learning opportunities that empower every individual to thrive in a rapidly changing world,” Mr Francis said. “We must combine our political will, with clear targeted actions to decisively address these urgent needs.”

‘Let’s start walking the talk’

Secretary-General Guterres has a four-point plan at the special event on education to end the global education crisis and build momentum towards achieving SDG4 by 2030.

This includes closing the financing and access gap nationwide, supporting teachers on the frontlines of education and and revolutionising education systems, the UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said.

“Education has got to be in the mix to shape that,” Ms. Mohammed said.

“ The message today is clear: Education is intrinsic to the achievement of our common goals in sustainable development, peace and human rights ,” she concluded, adding that education speaks to the very fabric of our societies and it has an essential contribution to make.

Mr. Guterres said, “ Education is the single-most important investment any country can make . In its people. And in its future,” in his closing remarks.

“So, let’s start walking the talk. Let’s come together to end the global crisis in education.”

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Education at a Glance

Education at a glance 2021.

OECD's annual Education at a Glance looks at who participates in education, what is spent on it, how education systems operate and the results achieved. The latter includes indicators on a wide range of outcomes, from comparisons of students’ performance in key subject areas to the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment. This book includes StatLinks, urls linking to Excel® spreadsheets containing the background data.

English Also available in: French , German , Spanish , Portuguese

• OECD Education Statistics
• ISSN: 19991487 (online)
• https://doi.org/10.1787/19991487
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OECD Indicators

Education at a Glance is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the structure, finances and performance of education systems across OECD countries and a number of partner economies. More than 100 charts and tables in this publication – as well as links to much more available on the educational database – provide key information on the output of educational institutions; the impact of learning across countries; access, participation and progression in education; the financial resources invested in education; and teachers, the learning environment and the organisation of schools.

The 2021 edition includes a focus on equity, investigating how progress through education and the associated learning and labour market outcomes are impacted by dimensions such as gender, socio-economic status, country of birth and regional location. A specific chapter is dedicated to Target 4.5 of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on equity in education, providing an assessment of where OECD and partner countries stand in providing equal access to quality education at all levels. Two new indicators on the mechanisms and formulas used to allocate public funding to schools and on teacher attrition rate complement this year's edition.

16 Sept 2021 474 pages English Also available in: French , German

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What Is Global Education and Why Does It Matter?

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• First Online: 08 April 2020

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• Fernando M. Reimers 2  

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Education ((BRIEFSEDUCAT))

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Global education are both practices guided by a set of purposes and approaches intentionally created to provide opportunities for students to develop global competencies, and the theories that explain and inform those practices and their effects. Global competencies encompass the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that help students develop, understand, and function in communities which are increasingly interdependent with other communities around the world, and that provide a foundation for lifelong learning of what they need to participate, at high levels of functioning, in environments in continuous flux because of increasing global change.

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A competence encompasses more than knowledge and skills “It involves the ability to meet complex demands, by drawing on and mobilizing psychosocial resources (including skills and attitudes) in a particular context. For example, the ability to communicate effectively is a competency that may draw on an individual’s knowledge of language, practical IT skills, and attitudes towards those with whom he or she is communicating” (OECD 2005 , p. 4).

A quintessentially global topic is climate change. Global competency should enable people to understand climate change, to adapt to mitigate its impact, and hopefully to revert it. Climate Change Education, a subdomain of Education for Sustainable Development, is a modality of Global Education focused on preparing people to achieve more sustainable ways to relate to our habitat. It encompasses preparation to adopt practices that are known to be sustainable, for example slowing down population growth, consuming a diet with a smaller carbon footprint, or using renewable energies. These practices may be individual in the choices we make about our own consumption and lifestyle, or they may be collective, the result of choices we make as citizens when we participate in the democratic process in various levels of government or when we influence the behavior of corporations. Government policies are essential to slowing global warming, and they are subject to influence and preferences by citizens, educated to understand the scientific consensus on climate change and with the capacity to exercise influence as citizens.

But Climate Change Education encompasses also the development of the innovation skills necessary to slow down climate change, which requires advancing knowledge and inventing technologies that can help us transform our interactions with the environment, in a way reinvent our way of life. As a result, educating to mitigate climate change and for sustainability involves equipping people with the necessary skills for such advancement of knowledge and invention.

An example from the field of sanitation will illustrate the role of inventive skills in addressing climate change. In his efforts to improve sanitation in the developing world, Bill Gates concluded that the toilets and water treatment systems developed and in use in the early industrialized world were poor fits to developing countries because they were resource-intensive and generated excessive waste. This caused him to undertake projects to stimulate innovation in the design of next-generation toilets that could operate without sewer systems (Brueck 2019 ; D’Agostino 2018 ).

The competencies gained from global education should help students understand how the communities in which they live relate to other communities around the world, how they are affected from that interaction and affect others, how their lives are shaped by topics which are global in nature, such as climate change, or trade, or scientific cooperation, and to participate in forms of global action and cooperation within their spheres of influence in ways which contribute effectively to the various communities they are a part of, and in this way improving the world.

There are different intellectual traditions that influence how global education is defined and conceptualized. These perspectives draw on various intellectual traditions: globalism, nationalism, internationalism, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, post-colonialism, and indigeneity. They are anchored in diverse core concepts: justice, equity, diversity, identity and belonging, and sustainable development. They include perspectives that accept the existing international social and economic order, along with others that are more critical (Davies et al. 2018 ).

Following a cosmopolitanist and critical perspective, in my own work developing global citizenship curriculum, I have adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a guiding framework because they articulate a capacious vision of sustainability and because they tie global education as a theoretical field and practice to a set of concepts that are widely shared across many fields of human endeavor, including education, but extending also into public health, work and industry, poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, poverty reduction. These seventeen goals are deeply rooted in multiple disciplines focused on human and social development. The Sustainable Development Goals pose also a challenge to the very notions of development and social progress, emphasizing the interdependence of inclusion, social justice, peace and environmental sustainability (Reimers et al. 2016 , 2017 ).

Global education encompasses the traditional disciplines in service of helping students understand the world in which they live: sciences, social sciences, and humanities. For example, to understand climate change it is necessary to understand the processes that explain how climate works, a subject of scientific study. A global education includes also opportunities for students to imagine and enact strategies to advance human well-being, which draws on the capacities of invention and ethical reasoning. This might include helping students to develop the curiosity to advance scientific understanding in a particular domain, or the desire to create products or services that advance well-being or solve problems, as with the previous example of reinventing toilets to address sanitation and advancing health.

Global education is not necessarily an additional curriculum domain, rather, it is a set of clear purposes which can help align the entire curriculum with real world questions, challenges, and opportunities. As such, global education is a way to help teachers as well as students understand the relationship between what is learned in school and the world outside the school. Global education encompasses also a series of approaches, pedagogies, curricula, and structures to support such instruction that is explicitly designed to help build the breadth of skills that can help students function in a deeply interdependent and increasingly globally integrated world. The Australian Curriculum Corporation defines it as follows:

Global education is defined as an approach to education which seeks to enable young people to participate in shaping a better shared future for the world through: Emphasising the unity and interdependence of human society, Developing a sense of self an appreciation of cultural diversity, Affirming social justice and human rights, peace building and actions for a sustainable future, Emphasising developing relationships with our global neighbours, Promoting open-mindedness and a predisposition to take action for change. (Curriculum Corporation 2008 , p. 2)

Global education includes multiple specific domains, such as environmental education and education for sustainability, understanding global affairs, understanding the process of globalization and of global interdependence, developing intercultural competency, fostering civic engagement, human rights, and peace education. Sciences and humanities are the disciplinary foundations of global education, for there is no way to understand the world without the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that result from learning to think as scientists do or reason as humanists can do.

For example, in order to understand climate change, students need to know not just the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change, but the underlying processes that are the major drivers of climate change producing significant release of carbon dioxide and other bases into the atmosphere which trap heat. Scientists have identified boundaries for ten systems within which humans and other species can live: freshwater use, land use, phosphorous pollution, ocean acidification, climate change, ozone depletion, nitrogen pollution, biodiversity loss, aerosol air, and chemical pollution. These systems are: ocean acidification, climate change, ozone depletion, nitrogen pollution, and biodiversity loss. Only after they understand those systems will students be able to comprehend the metrics which demonstrate the nature and causes of climate change. For eight of those system metrics for which we have data to compare pre-industrial revolution levels to current levels, five of them exceed the boundaries representing high risk that life is not sustainable. Furthermore, the remaining three metrics: freshwater use, land use, and phosphorous pollution, have changed significantly, in the direction of the increasing risk boundary. Only two of the eight metrics (ocean acidification and ozone depletion) have current values that are lower than the values before the industrial revolution (UNESCO 2017 , p. 20). Only once they can understand those systems and metrics, will students be able to understand the scientific consensus which is that the main causes of those changes are human–environmental interactions, resulting from overpopulation, modern lifestyles and individual behavior (NASA 2020 ). But, as explained earlier, in order to contribute to the mitigation of climate change, students will need more than the scientific understanding of how climate works. They will need the capacity for systemic thinking, and the capacity to identify various criteria, value-based systems, to choose among alternatives and weigh tradeoffs among alternatives, so they can evaluate the costs and benefits involved in reducing population growth, or consumption, or in building circular economies with industries located closer to cities as a way to reduce transportation costs.

An effective program of global education is not the additive result of a series of isolated experiences in various curriculum silos, but the result of coherent and integrated learning opportunities that can help students understand the relationship between what they learn in various grades and subjects in service of understanding the world and of being able to act to improve it. As such, a global education helps students think about complexity and understand the systems which undergird global issues and global interdependence.

The Asia Society and the OECD define global competence as follows:

Both OECD and the Center for Global Education have identified four key aspects of global competence. Globally competent youth: (1) investigate the world beyond their immediate environment by examining issues of local, global, and cultural significance; (2) recognize, understand, and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others; (3) communicate ideas effectively with diverse audiences by engaging in open, appropriate, and effective interactions across cultures; and (4) take action for collective well-being and sustainable development both locally and globally. (OECD and Asia Society 2018 , p. 12)

A global education, in short, helps prepare students to live so that “nothing human is foreign to them” to quote the playwright Terence who expressed this cosmopolitan aspiration two thousand years ago, a quote that so captivated the sixteenth-century philosopher and humanist Michel de Montaigne that he engraved it in one of the beams of his study. Montaigne’s focus on understanding human nature influenced many subsequent philosophers and scientists, including Rousseau, Bacon, Pascal, Descartes, and Emerson. He translated his humanist and cosmopolitan vision into ideas about how children should be educated. He argued that the goal of education was to prepare students for life and that this required experiential learning and personalization (Montaigne 1575 ).

In the chapters that follow, I explain each of these five perspectives in greater detail, illustrating how they can help approach the design and implementation of a program of global education.

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Reimers, F.M. (2020). What Is Global Education and Why Does It Matter?. In: Educating Students to Improve the World. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3887-2_2

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The global education challenge: Scaling up to tackle the learning crisis

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Alice albright alice albright chief executive officer - global partnership for education.

July 25, 2019

The following is one of eight briefs commissioned for the 16th annual Brookings Blum Roundtable, “2020 and beyond: Maintaining the bipartisan narrative on US global development.”

Addressing today’s massive global education crisis requires some disruption and the development of a new 21st-century aid delivery model built on a strong operational public-private partnership and results-based financing model that rewards political leadership and progress on overcoming priority obstacles to equitable access and learning in least developed countries (LDCs) and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Success will also require a more efficient and unified global education architecture. More money alone will not fix the problem. Addressing this global challenge requires new champions at the highest level and new approaches.

Key data points

In an era when youth are the fastest-growing segment of the population in many parts of the world, new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) reveals that an estimated 263 million children and young people are out of school, overwhelmingly in LDCs and LMICs. 1 On current trends, the International Commission on Financing Education Opportunity reported in 2016 that, a far larger number—825 million young people—will not have the basic literacy, numeracy, and digital skills to compete for the jobs of 2030. 2 Absent a significant political and financial investment in their education, beginning with basic education, there is a serious risk that this youth “bulge” will drive instability and constrain economic growth.

Despite progress in gender parity, it will take about 100 years to reach true gender equality at secondary school level in LDCs and LMICs. Lack of education and related employment opportunities in these countries presents national, regional, and global security risks.

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September 12, 2017

Esther Care, Patrick Griffin

April 11, 2017

Among global education’s most urgent challenges is a severe lack of trained teachers, particularly female teachers. An additional 9 million trained teachers are needed in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.

Refugees and internally displaced people, now numbering over 70 million, constitute a global crisis. Two-thirds of the people in this group are women and children; host countries, many fragile themselves, struggle to provide access to education to such people.

Highlighted below are actions and reforms that could lead the way toward solving the crisis:

• Leadership to jump-start transformation. The next U.S. administration should convene a high-level White House conference of sovereign donors, developing country leaders, key multilateral organizations, private sector and major philanthropists/foundations, and civil society to jump-start and energize a new, 10-year global response to this challenge. A key goal of this decadelong effort should be to transform education systems in the world’s poorest countries, particularly for girls and women, within a generation. That implies advancing much faster than the 100-plus years required if current programs and commitments remain as is.
• A whole-of-government leadership response. Such transformation of currently weak education systems in scores of countries over a generation will require sustained top-level political leadership, accompanied by substantial new donor and developing country investments. To ensure sustained attention for this initiative over multiple years, the U.S. administration will need to designate senior officials in the State Department, USAID, the National Security Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and elsewhere to form a whole-of-government leadership response that can energize other governments and actors.
• Teacher training and deployment at scale. A key component of a new global highest-level effort, based on securing progress against the Sustainable Development Goals and the Addis 2030 Framework, should be the training and deployment of 9 million new qualified teachers, particularly female teachers, in sub-Saharan Africa where they are most needed. Over 90 percent of the Global Partnership for Education’s education sector implementation grants have included investments in teacher development and training and 76 percent in the provision of learning materials.
• Foster positive disruption by engaging community level non-state actors who are providing education services in marginal areas where national systems do not reach the population. Related to this, increased financial and technical support to national governments are required to strengthen their non-state actor regulatory frameworks. Such frameworks must ensure that any non-state actors operate without discrimination and prioritize access for the most marginalized. The ideological divide on this issue—featuring a strong resistance by defenders of public education to tap into the capacities and networks of non-state actors—must be resolved if we are to achieve a rapid breakthrough.
• Confirm the appropriate roles for technology in equitably advancing access and quality of education, including in the initial and ongoing training of teachers and administrators, delivery of distance education to marginalized communities and assessment of learning, strengthening of basic systems, and increased efficiency of systems. This is not primarily about how various gadgets can help advance education goals.
• Commodity component. Availability of appropriate learning materials for every child sitting in a classroom—right level, right language, and right subject matter. Lack of books and other learning materials is a persistent problem throughout education systems—from early grades through to teaching colleges. Teachers need books and other materials to do their jobs. Consider how the USAID-hosted Global Book Alliance, working to address costs and supply chain issues, distribution challenges, and more can be strengthened and supported to produce the model(s) that can overcome these challenges.

Annual high-level stock take at the G-7. The next U.S. administration can work with G-7 partners to secure agreement on an annual stocktaking of progress against this new global education agenda at the upcoming G-7 summits. This also will help ensure sustained focus and pressure to deliver especially on equity and inclusion. Global Partnership for Education’s participation at the G-7 Gender Equality Advisory Council is helping ensure that momentum is maintained to mobilize the necessary political leadership and expertise at country level to rapidly step up progress in gender equality, in and through education. 3 Also consider a role for the G-20, given participation by some developing country partners.

Related Content

Jenny Perlman Robinson, Molly Curtiss Wyss

July 3, 2018

Michelle Kaffenberger

May 17, 2019

Ramya Vivekanandan

February 14, 2019

• “263 Million Children and Youth Are Out of School.” UNESCO UIS. July 15, 2016. http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/263-million-children-and-youth-are-out-school.
• “The Learning Generation: Investing in education for a changing world.” The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. 2016. https://report.educationcommission.org/downloads/.
• “Influencing the most powerful nations to invest in the power of girls.” Global Partnership for Education. March 12, 2019. https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/influencing-most-powerful-nations-invest-power-girls.

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The education sector is shifting and evolving towards a more explicit, active commitment to addressing gender-related barriers within and beyond the education system. This shift is being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic with more NGOs, local governments as well as national governments recognizing the role education has in promoting gender-transformative change. Many are responding to this shift with innovations that aim to address the persistent challenges faced by girls and women in education. By highlighting these key practices through the Prize, we can contribute to inspiring more action for girls and women.

We speak about the importance of gender-transformative change both in and beyond education. Can you define what this means for you?

Gender-transformative education aims not only to respond to gender disparities within the education system but also to harness the full potential of education to transform attitudes, practices and discriminatory gender norms. Education can support critical changes for gender equality, such as promoting women’s leadership, preventing gender-based violence, and catalyzing boys' and men's engagement to embrace gender equality.

I have been very impressed by the capacity shown by many organizations and individuals nominated to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure they could maintain the delivery of their programmes. We know that fewer girls and women have access to and use the internet, and the digital gender gap is growing, particularly in developing countries. Many found new ways of delivering educational content and finding solutions to conduct fully online or blended approaches to learning, often in low-resource settings where access to the internet is extremely limited.  

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People are checking the destruction at a UN-run school after Israeli bombardment in Nuseirat, in the ... [+] central Gaza Strip, on July 14, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (Photo credit: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

On September 9, the world observes the International Day to Protect Education from Attack , a day established by the U.N. General Assembly to raise awareness of the plight of millions of children living in countries affected by conflict. The day should be used to affirm the importance of safeguarding schools as places of protection and safety for students and educators and working to make it happen. As attacks on education continue, action is urgently needed. No child should fear for their lives at school. No child should have to choose between education and staying safe.

In the period between 2022 and 2023, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (the Coalition), an inter-agency coalition formed in 2010 to address the problem of targeted attacks on education during armed conflict, identified around 6,000 attacks on students, educators, schools, and universities, as well as cases of parties to conflict using educational facilities for military purposes. As the Coalition analyzed, attacks on education and military use increased by nearly 20% in 2022 and 2023 compared to the two previous years. Furthermore, according to their new report , more than 10,000 students and educators were killed, injured, abducted, arrested, or otherwise harmed by attacks on education in those two years. The number of students, teachers, professors, and education staff killed or injured increased by over 10% compared to the two previous years.

The Coalition further identified that in 2022 and 2023:

• The highest numbers of attacks on education were recorded in Palestine, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Myanmar. In each country, hundreds of schools were threatened, looted, burned, targeted with improvised explosive devices, or hit by shelling or airstrikes.
• India, Pakistan, Palestine, and Afghanistan had high reported numbers of people harmed or killed in attacks on education - injured or killed in attacks, targeted in abductions or arrests, or harmed en route to or from school or university.
• Attacks on education increased in Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine, Syria, and Nigeria, as compared to the previous two years.

The report details how the escalation of the war in Ukraine translated into an increase in attacks on schools and universities - attacks involving artillery shelling, rockets, and airstrikes. The conflict in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023, has seen a wave of attacks on educational facilities and their military use. Attacks on education in Palestine peaked in October 2023, following the Hamas attack on Israel and the escalation of hostilities. In Syria, the Coalition recorded an increase in cases of children being recruited while on their way to school, and schools coming under increasing attacks. In Nigeria, the military use of schools rose, while abductions from schools continued.

The U.N. reported that in 2023 alone, 32,990 grave violations were verified against 22,557 children, with 5,301 being killed - the equivalent of almost 15 children killed every day. The U.N. indicated that the highest numbers of grave violations were verified in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Sudan. The U.N. attributed almost 50% of the violations to non-State armed groups, while “government forces were the main perpetrator of the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access.” The U.N. also identified a significant increase of 21% in attacks against children in armed conflicts and a 35% increase in the number of instances of killing and maiming.

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The reported increase of attacks on education, despite the increased awareness of such attacks constituting violations of international humanitarian law, and many of them meeting the legal definition of international crimes, require urgent attention.

In 2024, the 5th Observance of the International Day to Protect Education from Attack is convened in Doha, Qatar, as a High-Level Panel led by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Education Above All Foundation (EEA) and U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Advocate. The High-Level Panel on “ Education in Peril: The Human Cost of War ” will focus on the devastating impact of war on children and on the loss of education opportunities for entire generations who have been displaced due to prolonged and widespread conflict.

As attacks on education rage on and are on the increase, one must stress the importance of education as a catalyst to ensure social cohesion and more sustainable and peaceful societies. Attacks on education are crimes, crimes that must be addressed with all the tools in the toolkit to put an end to the culture of impunity for such attacks. Accountability is key to ensuring justice for victims/survivors and their families, but also to prevent future atrocities. Justice and accountability are key to prevention.

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Sweeping global study charts a path forward for climate-resilient agriculture

Around the world, research on climate change and agriculture has revealed a complex two-way relationship. Global agriculture is a major driver of climate change, extinctions and pollution, and its influence on the environment is growing. At the same time, the flooding, droughts, and extreme temperatures resulting from climate change are beginning to threaten global food production. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are now 18 times higher than they were in the 1960s, accounting for about 30% of global warming. Excess fertilizer left on farm soil is broken down by bacteria to form nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Strategic efforts to reduce the warming impact of agriculture while maintaining high yields are essential to both mitigating climate change and protecting our food supply from its impacts.

A sweeping global research review published in Science , co-written by professors at the University of Minnesota with more than 20 experts around the world, examined the links between climate and agriculture. The study revealed the likelihood of an emergent feedback loop in which, as climate change puts more pressure on the global food supply, agriculture adopts practices that further accelerate climate change. The authors also identified new agricultural practices that have the potential to greatly reduce climate impacts, increase efficiency and stabilize our food supply in the decades to come.

The research found:

• Climate change has broad-ranging impacts on agricultural practices, increasing water use and scarcity, nitrous oxide and methane emissions, soil degradation, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, pest pressure, pesticide pollution and biodiversity loss. 
• Climate-agriculture feedback pathways could dramatically increase agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Without changes in agriculture, this feedback loop could make it impossible to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius.
• Existing sustainable agricultural practices and technologies, if they are implemented on a wide scale, can greatly reduce agricultural emissions and prevent a feedback loop from developing. To achieve this, governments must work to remove socioeconomic barriers and make climate-resilient solutions accessible to farmers and food producers.

“We need agriculture, but the future of humanity also requires that we reduce agriculture’s environmental harms,” said co-author David Tilman , a professor at the College of Biological Sciences. “Fifty years ago the impacts of agriculture were trivial, but today they are not. By evaluating new practices being tried around the world — here in the U.S., in Mexico, the European Union and China — we have identified practices that appear to increase harvests while decreasing environmental harm. Once these new practices are tested and verified, we need a farm bill that pays farmers both for producing food and for improving the environment. Farmers are the stewards of 40% of the land on Earth. Enabling better stewardship has tremendous benefits for all of us.”

“Legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act has provided resources to help our farms become more efficient,” said co-author Zhenong Jin , an associate professor in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. “We looked at all aspects of this relationship between agriculture and climate to determine where new practices are the most effective. While carbon sequestration is currently a priority, an integrated approach that factors in farming efficiency and pollutants like nitrous oxide could deliver much larger climate benefits and a more stable future for agriculture. Practices such as precision fertilizer use and crop rotation can prevent a feedback loop from developing.”

The team identified a number of next steps. First and foremost, stakeholders should accelerate the adaptation and cost-reduction of efficient and climate-friendly agriculture. Precision farming, perennial crop integration, agrivoltaics, nitrogen fixation, and novel genome editing are among the emerging techniques that could increase production and efficiency in agriculture while reducing climate change impacts. They recommend further research on climate-agriculture feedback pathways and new technologies like on-farm robots.

This research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.  

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Students from more than 70 countries to attend international youth forum on nuclear tech in Obninsk

• 21 September, 2023 / 07:00

On Sept. 21, the International Youth Nuclear Forum Obninsk NEW will open in Obninsk, which is home to the world’s first nuclear power plant. The event is part of the Nuclear Education Week and is organized by the Rosatom State Corporation, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, and Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering — a branch office of MEPhI.

Among those participating in the forum will be undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students, and young researchers from more than 70 countries (including China, India, Vietnam, Hungary, Kenya, Türkiye, Uzbekistan, South Africa and others), as well as recognized experts from the academic community, major international corporations, and government agencies.

The key theme for this year’s forum is Empowering Education for the World’s Sustainable Tomorrow .

The organizers envision all discussions and activities as lively interactive events. The goal is to comprehensively address the global challenges, the prospects of nuclear science, and the emerging technological trends, as well as the role of youth organizations in furthering education in the domain of nuclear technology, fostering an environment that makes the industry accessible to everyone, and establishing Obninsk as an important hub for training personnel for the nuclear industry.

Prominent speakers:

Alexey Likhachev , Director General, Rosatom State Corporation.

Sama Bilbao y León , Director General of World Nuclear Association.

Andrei Fursenko , Aide to the President of Russia (secretary of the Council, member of the Council’s presidium).

Mikhail Chudakov , Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Vladimir Shevchenko , Rector, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI.

Hortensia Jiménez Rivera , Director General, Bolivian Nuclear Energy Agency (ABEN).

Alikaan Çiftçi , President, Nuclear Industry Association of Türkiye.

Tran Chi Thanh , President, Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute.

Vladislav Shapsha , Governor, Kaluga Oblast of Russia.

Tatiana Leonova , Head of the City Administration, Obninsk.

Rafael Chesori , President, African Young Generation in Nuclear (nonprofit organization), Kenya.

Raden Mas Muhammed Mukhriz bin Radin Mas Emran , Deputy Chairperson of the Executive Committee, Brunei Youth Council.

Some of the highlights of the forum are a plenary session titled “Empowering Education for the World’s Sustainable Tomorrow” featuring Alexey Likhachev and the specialized session “Energy for Humanity: Unlocking the Potential of Nuclear Power” featuring Anatoly Chukharev , the Director of the Rosenergoatom International Business and Development Department. Deputy Director General for Human Resources Tatiana Terentieva of Rosatom will deliver concluding remarks at the close of the event.

The forum in Obninsk is envisioned as an annual event.

For more information and to see webcast of the event please visit https://impact-mission.org and https://impact-mission.org/events/obninsk-new-2023/

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• Vanderbilt Peabody Professor Brent Evans serves as senior advisor at U.S. Department of Education

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Sep 9, 2024, 1:48 PM

By Jenna Somers

On July 1, Brent Evans , associate professor of public policy and higher education, began his appointment in the Biden Administration as the senior advisor to the chief economist and to the under secretary of education at the U.S. Department of Education. Evans is an expert on college access and student success. He is particularly interested in the efficacy of financial aid policy on higher education outcomes. Much of his work focuses on student debt and loan aversion.

At the Department of Education, Evans provides technical expertise and research knowledge to inform the administration’s regulatory policy on student debt relief and loan forgiveness. He also analyzes data on higher education enrollment to understand impacts to enrollment following the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the delayed rollout of the revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). During his appointment, Evans is on leave from his faculty position at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development.

“I decided to join the Department of Education to serve the public and to further explore being directly engaged in policy work. For those of us who conduct policy research, this kind of role is the best way to have an impact on policy and to advise an administration on decisions that are being made for the nation,” Evans said.

In addition to advising on policy decisions, Evans is exploring research ideas informed by the Department of Education’s student loan data that synergizes with his scholarly work. This research could be useful for crafting future policies and helping families make informed decisions about funding their children’s college educations.

Evans’ senior advisor role is not his first stint working for the federal government. Prior to pursing his doctorate degree, Evans worked for two years at the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, a former federal agency that provided expertise on student financial aid to the executive and legislative branches of government.

“I am excited to once again have an opportunity to bring my expertise to bear on policy decisions that could benefit people across the country,” Evans said.

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