3 Things I Learned About Education at the United Nations in New York

Can this once-in-a-generation event transform education systems?

United Nations Transforming Education Summit 2022; UN Headquarters in New York (Source: Canva)

We’re in a global learning crisis that had worsened even before the pandemic.

In 2015, 53 per cent of all children in low- and middle-income countries suffered from learning poverty, unable to understand a simple written text by age 10.

In 2019, global learning poverty rose to 57 per cent.

For 2022, experts project 70 per cent of all 10-year-old children can’t understand a simple written text.

Learning Poverty Globally and by Region. (Source: The State of Global Learning Poverty by World Bank, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others)

The reasons?

Manifold and often systemic — undertrained, undervalued, and underpaid teachers, access to education, an education financing gap, a lack of early childhood education, and poverty traps perpetuating existing disparities.

And last but not least the relatively recent realization that schooling doesn’t equal learning.

Even though more and more children attend school worldwide, many go there day after day, not understanding anything. Education systems leave a lot of children behind…