Much of the focus of international aid in education has been on the lack of access to school, particularly in poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in conflict zones. But a new research from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and a World Bank report both warn that millions of school-age children do not have basic skills in math and reading. Many of these children are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities - they are sitting in classrooms; they are in school but learning nothing.
This is a wake-up call for far greater investment in the quality of education in the poorest countries where many pupils arrived at school in no condition to learn with too many teachers not being particularly well educated themselves. At the 72nd UN General Assembly there were international pledges for greater investment in education with French President Emmanuel Macron declaring education as a top priority of French development and foreign policy, along with Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for more funding for GPE.