“We promised to leave no one behind. We should not. We must not. I believe that — together — we will not.”

Education powers social transformation

That knowledge has been with me since birth — handed down by my parents who impressed on me that education is the be-all and end-all.

I grew up in the Caribbean, watching how education sparked intergenerational change in my own family, as well as countless other families around the world. I’ve seen first-hand how it empowers individuals, benefits households and communities, and breaks cycles of poverty and deprivation.

Perhaps the most powerful demonstration of that is investing in girls’ education. A girl who stays in school is likely to have more choices: to earn more; to be more resilient to climate change; to have a smaller, healthier, and better-educated family. And she’s less likely to experience violence, now or in her future.

But too many education systems are under stress

The resilience of students, teachers, schools, and wider systems is being tested — and it’s failing. We can put this down to the four Cs : Covid, climate, conflict, and conservatism.

The world is still reeling from the last pandemic. Many children have simply not returned to school. And we’re not nearly prepared enough for future health shocks, globally or locally.

Climate change is already disrupting the education of 40 million children a year — and we’ll need education to solve the climate crisis.

Conflict has stalled or even reversed progress in many places, with humanitarian needs at their highest since 1945.

And women’s and girls’ rights are under attack. A strengthened anti-rights movement is undermining decades of hard-won progress at all levels. Perhaps the most egregious example of this in education is in Afghanistan.

In many contexts, these four Cs play out where the education system is already struggling to keep pace with population growth, pay teachers on time, and deploy teachers to more remote environments.

The result? School closures, high drop-out rates, and learning losses with far-reaching consequences for largely poor and marginalized children.

Learning is under threat

Halfway to the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, learning poverty has reached alarming levels.

The 2022 State of Global Education report estimated that 70% of 10-year-olds are unable to understand a simple written text. This figure rises to 89% in sub-Saharan Africa, where only one in ten children leave primary school able to read, compared to nine out of ten in OECD countries like the UK.

Every day, millions of children around the world are denied their basic rights to safety and learning.

This is unacceptable.

So how do we build the resilience of individuals, educators, and the wider system to ensure lasting transformational change? The scale and depth of the learning crisis mean we can’t act in isolation or wait for solutions to appear.

We need to go back to basics

Foundational learning is critical for building lifelong resilience. It gives children a springboard to gain higher-order skills: digital skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and communication skills — essential to thrive in this century.

We know that what happens in early childhood is crucial. These formative years see the brain undergo rapid growth, making it a sensitive period for learning. Adequate levels of nutrition and healthcare are essential from birth to support this process, alongside a safe and nurturing environment.

Instilling inclusive values early on breaks cycles of inequality

We can only build a more resilient, fairer, safer, wealthier, and greener world — where everyone benefits and no one is left behind — if we put women and girls at the heart of our efforts.

Education is a critical tool for dismantling the attitudes and behaviors rooted in gender inequality that perpetuate violence, both against children and gender-based violence more broadly.

More accessible, quality early years provision means women can work and contribute to their household’s income, building economic resilience for themselves and their wider communities.

The good news is, we know what works

We know what it takes to transform education systems into fountains of resilience. Like giving parents and communities information about the benefits of education. Teaching children according to their level, not their age. Giving teachers well-structured resources.

 We must also invest better — and more — in education

There is increasing high-quality research and evidence on what works to improve learning outcomes in low-income contexts. The priority now is to embed these interventions in government systems. And make sure they’re sustainable at scale.

This comes in the context of funding gaps and tightened spending in donor and partner countries, which makes the quality of education spending more important than ever.

And money alone is not enough. We need to partner and collaborate with other countries and organizations to get more from our investments.

Building a coalition for foundational learning

The UK is a founding member of the Global Coalition for Foundational Learning, alongside partners from UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID, the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Partnership for Education.

These seven global organizations are working closely together to support national policymakers dedicated to transforming learning in schools across the globe.

Our increased global focus on foundational learning is an important shift and provides the opportunity to ensure that all children — including the most marginalized and vulnerable girls and children with disabilities — achieve what they deserve from education.

To make real progress, though, these leaders must translate positive energy and commitments into tangible progress on the ground. This means securing and sustaining the political will needed to address the challenge of getting more children to learn both quickly and at scale.

We need to accelerate political traction and action

Millions of children are still entering primary school late and with limited ‘school-readiness’. In many countries, children arrive in school without the socio-emotional skills, motor skills, or general knowledge needed to start learning.

And the children who need this support the most — those from poor communities, exposed to violence, or with parents overstretched and overstressed from dealing with economic, health, or climate-related interruptions — are the ones least likely to access it.

I’m not the first to sound the alarm on the foundational learning crisis and its implications. I won’t be the last. But while we have made progress globally, we need far more political traction. I’m not convinced that as a global community we have woken up yet to the full impact of the crisis in foundational learning, and the need for urgent action.

So how do we support governments to orient systems around results and outcomes? How do we build internal accountability mechanisms? Given the power of foundational learning to transform societal norms and progress gender equality, should we, for example, join forces with women’s rights organizations and movements?

To future-proof our education systems, we must also build the resilience of our educators. Have we really learned every lesson from the pandemic, when educators developed innovative, collaborative, locally relevant approaches? Are we giving educators the training, tools, and approaches to buffer interruptions in education?

Are communication channels between educators and their employers sufficiently open? What of the role of the unions? Of humanitarian funding, development financing, and insurance?

It’s time to think beyond Ministers of Education

We can cast our net wider, and build broader collaboration. For example: are we getting through to Heads of State, and other ministries, such as finance? We must pay enough attention to parliamentarians, parents, and the wider public as they demand better education and hold government to account. And if we are to continue our move into innovative financing, perhaps we should reach out more systematically to finance experts.

Our collective pursuit to end learning poverty and build the resilience of learners, educators, and wider education systems is not just an investment in education. It is an investment in the very fabric of our societies. One that we can make together, today.

——
Alicia Herbert
Director of Education, Gender and Equality and Special Envoy for Gender Equality, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), United Kingdom