Education
70 Percent of 10-Year-Olds Can't Read a Simple Sentence
251 million children are out of school entirely, and most of the ones who are in school aren't learning. The fixes are cheap and known, they just aren't funded at the scale of the problem.
Children out of school right now
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Estimated cost so far this year of children not learning the basics.
The evidence
251 Million Children Locked Out of School
An estimated 251 million children and youth remain out of school worldwide (UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, 2024), a number that has barely moved in years despite decades of Sustainable Development Goal commitments.
70 Percent Can't Read a Simple Sentence by Age 10
70 percent of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple written text, up from 57 percent before the pandemic (World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF, State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update). In sub-Saharan Africa the rate reaches 89 percent, and in South Asia 78 percent.
A 21 Trillion Dollar Hit to One Generation
Today's students risk losing an estimated 21 trillion dollars in lifetime earnings in present value, equivalent to 17 percent of today's global GDP, unless learning losses are reversed (World Bank, 2022).
Rich Countries Spend 155 Times More Per Student
High-income countries invest an average of 8,543 dollars per learner each year, while low-income countries manage just 55 dollars per student (UNESCO, Global Partnership for Education), a gap that compounds every year a child stays in the system.
44 Million Teachers Missing From the World's Classrooms
The world needs 44 million more teachers by 2030 to reach universal primary and secondary education (UNESCO Global Report on Teachers, 2024), with 7 in 10 of the shortfall in secondary schools and sub-Saharan Africa alone accounting for a third of the gap.
A 97 Billion Dollar Annual Financing Gap
Low- and lower-middle-income countries face a financing gap of roughly 97 billion dollars a year to meet their 2030 education targets (UNESCO), even as unresolved learning gaps already cost the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
What we can do
Phase 1: fund foundational literacy and numeracy programs, structured pedagogy and "teaching at the right level" interventions, in the lowest-scoring, least-monitored regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Phase 2: close the teacher gap through accelerated, low-cost teacher training and pay reform, prioritizing secondary schools where 7 of 10 missing teachers are needed. Phase 3: redirect aid and domestic education budgets toward the 97-billion-dollar annual SDG4 financing gap, favoring interventions with proven cost-effectiveness over the 155x per-student spending gap between rich and poor countries.
Sources: World Bank, UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO Global Report on Teachers, UNICEF, Global Partnership for Education
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