The World Bank has warned of a learning crisis in global education particularly in low and middle-income countries like India. It has underlined that schooling without learning is not just a wasted development opportunity, but also a great injustice to children worldwide.
The World Bank in a latest report has noted that millions of young students in these countries face the prospect of lost opportunity and lower wages in later life because their primary and secondary schools are failing to educate them to succeed in life.
According to the ‘World Development Report 2018 ‘Learning to Realise Education’s Promise’:
- India ranks second after Malawi in a list of 12 countries wherein a grade two student could not read a single word of a short text.
- India also tops the list of seven countries in which a grade two student could not perform two-digit subtraction.
- In rural India, just under three-quarters of students in grade 3 could not solve a two-digit subtraction such as 46 – 17, and by grade 5 half could still not do so
- The report argued that without learning, education will fail to deliver on its promise to eliminate extreme poverty and create shared opportunity and prosperity for all.
- Even after several years in school, millions of children cannot read, write or do basic math.
- This learning crisis is widening social gaps instead of narrowing them
- This learning crisis is a moral and economic crisis
What Report Recommends
- Concrete policy steps to help developing countries resolve this dire learning crisis in the areas of stronger learning assessments
- Using evidence of what works and what doesn’t to guide education decision-making
- Mobilising a strong social movement to push for education changes that champion ‘learning for all’.
