The Education Breakthrough That Matters

Bitter conflict, increasing radicalization, the mass movement of people, growing inequality, climate change, sluggish global economic growth. In a world beset by seemingly insurmountable problems, it can be hard to know where to start to bring about change for the better.

All these complexities hit the young. Indeed, children are not only subject to conflict and poverty, but they also can experience the horrors of early marriage, forced labor and trafficking.

Breaking out of these pathways of despair is a huge challenge and one that the United Nations has set for member states in the new Sustainable Development Goals. If we are to begin to build a better future that lives up to our stated aims then we need to have every child at school by 2030.

A year ago, Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, asked me to join the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, a global team dedicated to coming up with new ideas with the power to make a big impact on the availability and quality of education.

Last week, we presented our report The Learning Generation to the UN Secretary-General at the opening of the UN General Assembly. Our report contains some facts that are staggering.

Quality education in low-income countries is the key to eliminating extreme poverty, securing a 70 percent higher GDP per capita, adding a collective 47 million years of life, and by empowering women, reducing family size and population growth by 15 percent.

Historical analysis also shows that low educational attainment consistently predicts the outbreak and continuation of violent conflict. Conversely, when educational inequality doubles, the probability of conflict more than doubles; low levels of secondary education among young males is strongly associated with higher levels of social disorder and disturbance.

Yet, despite the power of learning, it is in short supply in our world. On current trends, by 2030, just 3 in 10 children in low-income countries will achieve minimum reading levels. Even children living in more prosperous nations miss out. More than half the children of middle-income countries will not reach minimum secondary skill levels, and that includes 21 percent who will not even attain basic primary learning standards.

But the real impact of our report is not in these numbers. Its big punch is the finding that this learning crisis can genuinely be fixed in a generation. This is not a dreamer’s pie-in-the-sky conclusion.

We analyzed countries by income level and identified the top twenty five percent fastest improves. If all countries in each income band accelerated progress in learning at the same rate as those top improvers then, within a generation, all children in low- and middle-income countries could have access to quality preprimary, primary and secondary education. A child in a low-income country could be as likely to reach secondary school as a child in a high-income country today.

What does it look like to accelerate change?

First, no dollar spent on education gets wasted. Corruption gets tackled. Misconceived policies are replaced with ones that are cost-effective and efficient.

Second, there is innovation, including an embrace of the power of new technology.

Third, there is a recognition that equity and efficiency are two sides of the same coin. If education spending is further privileging the most advantaged children, then we’re further leaving behind the most marginalized communities. Doing what is morally right and pleasing to an economist is happily the same thing.

Fourth, there will be a need for more resources. Financing the Commission’s vision will take a major effort from all partners. The investment plan projects that a majority of the financing effort will be borne by governments of developing countries (specifically, public spending on education needs to rise to an average 5.8 percent of GDP by 2030).

With this scale of domestic effort, only 3 percent of the total costs will be needed from international financing. This still means that international funds need to rise by an average of 11 percent per year, from today’s estimated $16 billion per year to $89 billion per year by 2030.

Are these kinds of increases possible? My experience as board chair of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), as well as with the Education Commission, tells me it can be done but only if the world seizes this moment and embraces change.

The Education Commission — an entity that would not have existed without the leadership of Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the effective chairing of former UK Prime Minister and UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown — is more than a call to action. It is a practical plan to achieve the change our world needs to see.

I say let’s get on with it.

Julia Gillard is the Former Prime Minister of Australia, as well as the Chair of the Board of Directors at the Global Partnership for Education.