Think back to when you were 10. Imagine if you had not been able to read and understand a simple story at that age. Where do you think you would be today? Age 10 is the age at which children should be switching from learning to read to reading to learn. This critical milestone sets children up for a lifetime of learning. It increases their ability to earn, innovate, improve their own opportunities, and contribute to their societies, including becoming...
The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to undo years of progress on global education. Since the pandemic started, school closures have affected up to 91% of enrolled learners, or 1.6 billion children. Here is a look at how countries’ policies on school closures evolved over the past six months. COVID-19 quickly transformed from a localized epidemic to a global pandemic with far-reaching consequences across sectors 6 months ago, when COVID-19 was still just a localized epidemic, only two countries had restrictions on...
Even before COVID-19, 90% of children in low-income countries could not read and understand a simple sentence. The global learning crisis is the biggest educational threat of our time, not just because it means that individual potential is being squandered. The world’s future hangs in the balance. After all, the children of today are the doctors and public health professionals of tomorrow. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, this sobering picture has only gotten worse. At its peak, COVID-19 pushed 1.6 billion...