Access to education
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Since the start of GPE 2025, GPE has reached nearly 253 million children, including 103 million girls and 380,383 children with disabilities. Those children account for 39% of all school-age children in the 76 countries with GPE grants. Of the nearly 253 million children, 70% are in partner countries affected by fragility and conflict.
Source: GPE Results Report 2024, p. 31 -
82 million more girls are in school in GPE partner countries since 2002.
Source: GPE 2025 Case for investment, p. 8 -
251 million children are still not in school today.
Source: Global education monitoring report, 2024/5, Leadership in education: lead for learning, p. 6
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160 million more children are in school in partner countries since 2002.
Source: GPE 2025 Case for investment, p. 4 -
106 million more children enrolled in school in partner countries affected by fragility and conflict since 2002.
Source: GPE 2025 Case for investment, p. 25 - As of 2022, 16% of primary-school-age children, about 20% of lower-secondary-school-age adolescents and 26% of upper-secondary-school-age youth were out of school in partner countries.
Source: GPE Results Report 2024, p. 15 - Nearly 67% of partner countries’ partnership compacts address improving access for children with disabilities, with half focusing on teaching and learning for those children.
Source: GPE Results Report 2024, p. 23 - 85% of GPE grants supported activities to improve access to education in partner countries. through 38 COVID grants and close to 400,000 teachers received training on accelerated programs.
Source: GPE Results Report 2024, p. 88 -
1 in 5 children are out of school in low-income countries.
Source: Global education monitoring report, 2024/5, Leadership in education: lead for learning.
Climate change and education
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If every child received a full secondary school education by 2030, 200,000 disaster–related deaths could be averted in the following two decades through improved risk awareness.
Source: UNESCO, 2016 -
1 billion children are at extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change. That is nearly half of all children in the world.
Source: UNICEF, 2021 -
Climate change could displace more than 216 million people by 2050, forcing them out of their homes and communities, interrupting their schooling, causing psychosocial stress and straining education provision at their destination.
Source: World Bank, 2021
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For every additional year of schooling girls receive, their country’s resilience to climate-driven disasters improves substantially.
Source: Brookings, 2017 -
Nearly 40 million children a year have their education interrupted by disasters and subsequent disease outbreaks following extreme weather events.
Source: Theirworld, 2018 -
Just 2.4% of climate finance can be classified as supporting projects incorporating child-responsive activities, with education-specific projects being negligible.
Source: Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative, 2023 -
Studies show the detrimental negative impact of excess heat on test scores causing up to 1% drop in learning achievement with every 0.55°C increase in temperature.
Source: Goodman et al, 2018 -
Nearly 60% of high disaster-risk countries include risk reduction or disaster response components in their education sector plan, but the details are limited.
Source: Paci-Green, 2020 -
1.3 billion school-aged children around the world are currently experiencing at least one extreme climate event per year, and 90% of these children live in low- and middle-income countries.
Source: The need for climate-smart education financing. A review of the evidence and new costing framework, Save the Children and GPE. 2023. p.24 -
There is a lack of meaningful integration of climate considerations in education plans. According to a 2021 UNESCO study of 46 countries, 92% of education sector plans and national curriculum frameworks included at least one reference to environment-related keywords (for example, environmental, ecosystem, biodiversity, the climate crisis, sustainable development) but the depth of inclusion was very low on average.
Source: The need for climate-smart education financing. A review of the evidence and new costing framework, Save the Children and GPE. 2023. p.24 -
Even though countries are mainstreaming climate change in the curricula, only 39% have a national law, policy or strategy focused on climate change education. Further, only 63% of teacher training plans include a focus on climate change.
Source: The need for climate-smart education financing. A review of the evidence and new costing framework, Save the Children and GPE. 2023. p.24 -
Almost half a billion children live in areas experiencing at least twice as many extremely hot days as their grandparents.
Source: UNICEF, 2024
COVID-19 and education
- On June 1st 2020, GPE doubled its COVID-19 emergency funding window to US$500 million to help lower-income countries mitigate both the immediate and long-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on education.
Source: GPE Secretariat - 100 million children reached through distance learning programs (48% girls) thanks to GPE COVID-19 grants.
Source: GPE Secretariat - At the peak of school closures, 1.6 billion learners were out of school, with 810 million in low-income countries.
Source: UNESCO
- 21 million children received school meals and took learning assessment tests through GPE COVID-19 grants.
Source: GPE Secretariat - 722,000 teachers trained in distance learning methods through GPE COVID-19 grants.
Source: GPE Secretariat - 59 million children received psychological support through GPE COVID-19 grants.
Source: GPE Secretariat - More than 80% of the 66 accelerated grants to help countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 included initiatives that targeted children with disabilities to ensure learning continuity.
Source: GPE Secretariat - On April 1st 2020, just three weeks after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, GPE unlocked US$250 million to help 67 lower-income countries mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on education.
Source: GPE Secretariat - On March 25, 2020, GPE provided US$8.8 million to UNICEF to kickstart education systems’ response to COVID-19 in 87 lower-income countries.
Source: GPE Secretariat - COVID-19 education grants have provided over $35 million across GPE partner countries to help teachers adapt to new distance learning methods.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
Content for remote learning was provided to teachers by 58% of all countries ranging from 81% in Europe and Northern America to just 29% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: World Teachers’ Day 2021 Fact Sheet, p.7 - School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to reduce the learning-adjusted years of education across developing regions by roughly a third to a full year.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p.2 - The global learning loss is equivalent to 0.7 year of lost learning, which could translate into an annual reduction of 6.5% in the future earnings of current students once engaged in a job, as a result of lower productivity due to fewer cognitive skills. This reduction in earnings prospects could contract national income growth by 2.2% each year of working life (45 years on average) of the generation hit by the pandemic.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p.2 - Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 6 out of 10 students in low and middle-income countries could not read and understand simple texts by age 10. Now, 7 out of 10 cannot read (due to the impact of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic).
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p.18 - Without adequate remediation, learning loss will likely translate into a huge negative impact on the global economy - up to a 0.68 percentage point reduction of GDP growth.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p.18 - 41% of lower income countries reduced their spending on education after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with an average decline in spending of 13.5%.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2022. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p.4 - Learning losses from missed in-person schooling amounting to 2 trillion hours of lost learning.
Source: UNICEF, 2022 - Total global education spending over the last 10 years before COVID-19 increased steadily, from US$4 trillion in 2010 to US$4.9 trillion in 2018, and then stagnated with the onset of the pandemic.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2022. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p.10 - 13 million girls could be forced into early marriage as their parents grapple with the economic fallout of COVID-19.
Source: World Bank, 2020
Early childhood education
- Worldwide, 175 million pre-primary aged children are not enrolled in pre-primary education.
Source: UNICEF, 2019 - Despite rapid progress in the past two decades, the pre-primary gross enrollment ratio stood at 61.5% worldwide in 2019.
Source: Right from the start: build inclusive societies through inclusive early childhood education. GEMR Policy paper 46. July 2021. P.2 - 65% of children were enrolled in pre-primary education in GPE partner countries in 2021 compared to 19% in 2002.
Source: GPE results report 2023, p.27 - In FY23, GPE grants supporting early childhood education total $272 million.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024
- Pre-primary enrollment for girls reached 69% in 2021 compared to 65% overall.
Source: GPE results report 2023, p.89 -
About 85% of grants supporting early learning included support for pre-primary teachers in 2022.
Source: GPE Secretariat - In 2020, 3 out of 4 children globally were enrolled in organized learning one year before the official primary entry age, with progress stagnating since 2015.
Source: The sustainable development goals report 2023. p.21 - As of 2020, only half of the 187 countries and areas with data provided free pre-primary education, and almost three quarters of the 215 countries and areas with data did not make pre-primary education compulsory.
Source: The sustainable development goals report 2023. p.21 - In sub-Saharan Africa, the average annual participation rate in early childhood education in 2020–2025 must grow four times faster, from 0.7 to 2.8 percentage points per year, if the countries in the region are to reach their 2025 national targets – or even faster if COVID-19 is found to have had a long-term impact.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p.4 -
Among the 20 countries with the world’s lowest preschool participation rates, 14 are in Africa.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p.127 - Just 20% of children are enrolled in pre-primary education in low-income countries.
Source: Global education monitoring report, 2021/2: non-state actors in education: who chooses? who loses? UNESCO 2021, p. 251 - Only 63 (over 193) countries have adopted legal provisions for free pre-primary education, and 51 countries have adopted pre-primary education as a compulsory level in national legal frameworks.
Source: UNESCO, 2021 - Only 1% of aid to education is invested in pre-primary education.
Source: TheirWorld 2021, p.15
Economic growth
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Every $1 a government spends on education increases GDP on average by $20.36.
Source: World Bank WDI Report 2022 -
Education accounts for 50% of global economic growth, 70% of income gains among the world’s poorest quintile, and 40% of extreme poverty reduction since 1980.
Source: Gethin, 2024 -
By 2030, globally, the annual social costs of children who leave school early or with less than basic skills will equal US$10 trillion.
Source: The price of inaction: the global private, fiscal and social costs of children and youth not learning UNESCO, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Commonwealth Secretariat, 2024.
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Global evidence has shown that each additional year of schooling that a person completes yields 10% more income on average, which is higher than the average annual returns on the US stock market.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 22 -
A change of 1% in learning is associated with a change of 7.2% in annual growth.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p. 4 -
Higher individual earnings translate to higher spending and increased tax returns, which can be reinvested by governments, meaning that education is, essentially, a self-financing investment.
Source: Deming (2022). Four facts about human capital. Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 36, Number 3 - Summer 2022. -
Education builds skills and fosters creativity, and educated people tend to innovate more and create new businesses and technologies, which in turn boost private sector development and generate more employment.
Source: Annabi, N. (2017). Investments in education: What are the productivity gains? Journal of Policy Modelling, 39(3), 499-518. -
Teaching according to learning level with technology support for one year can improve learning by 0.27 standard deviation, which has the potential to increase students’ future earnings by 5.5% while yielding US$1,724 in future benefits per beneficiary at a student cost per year of US$26.6.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p. 20 -
Global youth employment declined by 34 million from 2019 to 2020, and young men are also 1.5 times more likely than young women to be employed.
Source: Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022: Investing in transforming futures for young people. Geneva: ILO, 2022. p.15. -
1/5 young people worldwide does not have experience in the labor market, does not receive income from work and is not enhancing their education and skills.
Source: Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024. Decent work, brighter futures, Geneva: International Labour Office, 2024.
Education in crisis situations
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Globally 234 million crisis-affected children and adolescents require urgent support to access quality education: An increase of 35 million girls and boys over the past three years.
Source: Brief: State of education for crisis-affected children and adolescents: Access and learning outcomes, Global estimates 2025 update, p.1 -
Nearly 1 in 5 children globally (19%) live in conflict zones as the world experiences the highest number of conflicts since World War II. This amounts to over 473 million children.
Source: UNICEF, 2024 -
74% of children completed primary school in partner countries affected by fragility and conflict in 2021 compared to 66% in 2013. 52% of children completed lower secondary school in these countries in 2021.
Source: GPE Results Report 2023, p. 89 -
$435 million in cofinancing was unlocked for partner countries affected by fragility and conflict through the GPE Multiplier and GPE Match in 2022.
Source: GPE results at a glance. June 2024. p. 2
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106 million more children enrolled in school in partner countries affected by fragility and conflict since 2002.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
163 million children were supported by GPE in partner countries affected by fragility and conflict since fiscal year 2022.
Source: GPE Results Report 2023, p. 73 -
52% of GPE funding have been spent in partner countries affected by fragility and conflict.
Source: GPE Results Report 2022, p. 136 -
As of August 2023, GPE has invested $1.1 billion to strengthen education systems in 17 countries where refugees have access to school.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
Since 2013, 68 GPE partner countries have accessed a total of US$857 million to mitigate the impact of crises on children’s education, including natural disasters, armed conflict, forced displacement, and health emergencies.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
34 GPE partner countries are affected by fragility or conflict in fiscal year 2023.
Source: List of GPE partner countries affected by fragility and conflict -
GPE partner countries are home to almost 4 million refugee children, about 45% of the world’s refugee children population.
Source: UNHCR and GPE data as of 2016. UNHCR data only accounts for refugees for whom demographic data is available. -
If the enrollment rate for secondary schooling is 10 percentage points higher than the average, the risk of war is reduced by about 3 percentage points (a decline in the risk from 11.5% to 8.6%).
Source: World Bank. Understanding Civil War, 2005 , p. 16 -
Each year of education reduces the risk of conflict by around 20%.
Source: World Bank. Doing well out of war (Paul Collier), 1999 , p. 5 -
Globally, 85 million children (37%) affected by crises are out of school: 52% girls, 20% children with disabilities, 17% forcibly displaced (13% internally displaced and 4% refugees and asylum-seekers).
Source: Brief: State of education for crisis-affected children and adolescents: Access and learning outcomes, Global estimates 2025 update, p.2 -
50% of the 85 million out-of-school crisis-affected children are concentrated in just 5 protracted crises: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Sudan.
Source: Brief: State of education for crisis-affected children and adolescents: Access and learning outcomes, Global estimates 2025 update, p.1 -
Children with disabilities are some of the most marginalized and affected groups in crises. They make up over 20% of out-of-school crisis-affected children (over 17 million).
Source: Brief: State of education for crisis-affected children and adolescents: Access and learning outcomes, Global estimates 2025 update, p.2 -
Access to secondary education is dire: 36% of children of lower-secondary and 47% of upper-secondary school-age children are unable to access education.
Source: Brief: State of education for crisis-affected children and adolescents: Access and learning outcomes, Global estimates 2025 update, p.2 -
Even when they are in school, many children affected by crises are falling behind. Only 17% of crisis-affected primary school-age children achieve minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary school.
Source: Brief: State of education for crisis-affected children and adolescents: Access and learning outcomes, Global estimates 2025 update, p.2 -
Education is one of the least funded humanitarian areas, receiving just 3% of global humanitarian financing in 2021.
Source: Geneva Global Hub for Education In Emergencies, 2022 -
Nearly 40 million children a year have their education interrupted by disasters and subsequent disease outbreaks following extreme weather events.
Source: Theirworld, 2018 -
Children account for 30% of the global population, yet they account for roughly 40% of refugee populations and 49% of internally displaced people, on average.
Source: UNICEF, 2024 -
Close to half of all refugee children – 48 % – remain out of school. Gross enrollment rates for the 2020- 21 school year stood at 42% for pre-primary, 68% for primary, and 37% for secondary.
Source: UNHCR, 2022 -
Just 5 % of refugee students are currently enrolled in university.
Source: UNHCR - The average annual cost of educating refugees is less than 5% of public education expenditure in developing nations hosting 85% of the world’s refugees
Source: World Bank and UNHCR. The Global Cost and Inclusive Refugee Education, 2021 - Developing regions hosted 92% of the world’s school-age refugees in 2017.
Source: UNHCR. Turn the tide: refugee education in crisis (2018), p. 14 -
There were more than 5,000 incidents of attacks on education and cases of military use of schools between January 2020 and December 2021.
Source: GCPEA Education under attack, 2022, p. 11 -
In the past five years, funding requests for education in emergencies have increased by 21%.
Source: 2017 GEM Report Policy Paper 31, p. 7 -
School enrollment rates for girls living in forced displacement are far below national rates.
Source: INEE, 2021 - 20 years on average: length of forced displacement due to crises and conflicts.
Source: UNHCR, 2016, Global trends – Forced displacement in 2015, p. 20
Financing
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Almost 60% of partner countries increased their share of education expenditure or maintained it at 20% or above.
Source: GPE results report 2024, p.38 -
Children in high income countries received an education worth 155 times more (US$8,532 per child in 2022 constant US dollars) than the education received by children in low-income countries (US$55 per child in low-income countries).
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 7 -
Total loss to education aid due to cuts in several donor countries could be equivalent to 14%.
Source: What is the potential impact of recent cuts in aid to education? GEM Report, April 9, 2025 -
Globally, education spending as share of GDP has decreased from 4.5% in 2010 to 4.3% in 2022.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 6
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In FY23, GPE grants supporting domestic financing mobilization for education total $232 million.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024. p. 4 -
In 2021, leaders from 21 GPE partner countries issued a declaration on domestic education financing committing $200 billion over 5 years to ensure all children have access to quality education.
Source: GPE results at a glance. June 2024. p. 2 -
Globally, total education aid (ODA) reached US$16.6 billion in 2022, up from US$14.3 billion in 2021, a growth in real terms of 16% year on year.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 3 -
In 2021, total education spending increased from US$5.7 trillion in 2021 to US$5.8 trillion in 2022.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 4 -
As of 2022, governments contributed around three quarters to total education funding (74.6%), while households contributed one quarter (25.1%), and donor’s ODA accounted for 0.29% in 2022.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 5 -
While governments are the largest funders of education in all country income groups, their contributions differ significantly among those groups, ranging from 80.4% in high-income countries to 61.9% in low-income countries in 2022.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 5 -
Between 2010 and 2022, government education spending in low-income countries grew from 2.9 to 3.9% of GDP.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 6 -
In South Asia, government spending per child has more than doubled over the past decade, climbing from US$218 in 2010 to US$515 in 2022.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 7 -
To achieve national SDG 4 benchmarks, low-income countries and low- and middle-income countries would need to increase total education spending from governments, households and donors between 4.2% and 6.5% of their GDP over the period from 2023 to 2030.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 8-9 -
In most decentralized countries, subnational governments account for over 50% of total public education spending.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p. 23 -
In 2020, only 6 of 30 OECD Development Assistance Committee members (Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) met the target of 0.7% of gross national income to ODA.
Source: What is the potential impact of recent cuts in aid to education? GEM Report, April 9, 2025 -
For the past 15 years, ODA spending levels among OECD donors have stagnated at about 0.35% of their gross national income.
Source: What is the potential impact of recent cuts in aid to education? GEM Report, April 9, 2025 -
In low-income countries, aid accounts for 12% of total education spending, including household contributions.
Source: What is the potential impact of recent cuts in aid to education? GEM Report, April 9, 2025 -
Total global education spending grew in real terms by an average of 1.8% per year between 2010 and 2022. This rate of increase is slower than global economic growth rates.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 3 -
The share of total ODA allocated to education decreased from 9.3% in 2019 to 7.6% in 2022.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 3 -
For every US$100 that high-income countries allocated on education per child in 2022, low-income countries allocated less than US$1.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 7 -
Basic education, which encompasses pre-primary and primary levels, usually receives the largest portion of ODA, but its share declined from 52% in 2010 to 46% in 2022. In contrast, the share allocated to secondary education rose from 20 to 26%, while the share for post-secondary education remained steady at approximately 28%.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 10 -
The median level of government spending on education as a share of total public expenditure in Africa was 15.5% in 2021, down by 0.9 percentage points compared to 2012, largely due to increased debt servicing costs and the shift of resources to address the health needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2024. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 18 -
It is estimated that global education expenditure is over US$5 trillion. Public expenditure on education is significant; on average, countries spend about 4.5% to 5% of GDP on education, except for low-income countries.
Source: Education finance watch 2023. p. 19 -
Public education expenditure has remained constant at about 4.2% of GDP but the proportion of lower-income countries either in or at high risk of debt distress rose from 27% to 58%.
Source: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. 2023, p. 2 -
$97 billion: The annual gap in education financing to reach Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030.
Source: Can countries afford their national SDG 4 benchmarks? April 2023, p. 1 -
Sub-Saharan African countries account for the largest share of the financing gap: $70 billion per year on average.
Source: GEMR Policy Paper 49. June 2023. p. 7 -
About 40% of low- and lower-middle-income countries spend below international benchmarks for public education spending.
Source: Education Finance Watch 2022. World Bank, GEMR, UIS. p. 7 -
In sub-Saharan Africa, households account for 38% of total education spending, ranging from less than 5% in Ethiopia, Lesotho and Sao Tome and Principe to more than 67% in Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p. 145
Gender equality
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122 million girls were out of school worldwide in 2021.
Source: Global Education Monitoring Report -
82 million more girls are in school in partner countries since 2002.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
84% of active grants in 2023 (92 out of 110 grants) integrated gender equality as an
objective, totaling financing of $1,015 million for grant components focusing on gender equality.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024 -
83.5% of girls finished primary school in 2021 in partner countries compared to 70% in 2013.
Source: GPE results report 2023, p.89
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On average, partner countries have achieved gender parity in primary education.
Source: GPE Results Report 2023, p.32 -
55% of girls completed lower-secondary school in 2021 in partner countries compared to 46% in 2013.
Source: GPE results report 2023, p.89 -
42 GPE grants worth $1.3 billion integrate at least one subcomponent with gender equality as its main objective.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024. p.2 -
In FY23, $404 million were allocated to grants supporting activities related to gender equality, including: $43 million for gender-responsive education infrastructure; $37 million for programs on gender-responsive teaching and learning; $27 million for organizational capacity to enhance gender responsiveness programs; $26 million for programs on early marriage, pregnancy, gender responsive health and hygiene; $13 million for activities related to school-related gender-based violence.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024. p.4 -
The number of young women completing secondary school for every 100 young men increased from 102 to 105 globally, and from 84 to 88 in sub-Saharan Africa, which remains the region where young women face the largest disadvantage.
Source: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. 2023, p.1 -
The rate of progress for gender parity in upper secondary school completion was twice as fast in 2008–2020 than in 2000–2008.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p.6-7 -
Human capital wealth could increase by almost 22% globally with gender equality in earnings.
Source: Unrealized potential: the high cost of gender inequality in earnings, p.7 -
Educating girls averted more than 30 million deaths of children under 5 years old and 100 million deaths in adults 15 to 60 years old.
Source: The Learning Generation, p.34 -
Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage.
Source: Missed opportunities: the high cost of not educating girls (2018), p.52 -
If all girls get 12 years of schooling, human capital wealth could increase by $15-30 trillion.
Source: Missed opportunities: the high cost of not educating girls (2018), p.5 -
Women with primary education (partial or completed) earn 14% to 19% more than those with no education at all. Women with secondary education may expect to make almost twice as much, and women with tertiary education almost three times as much as those with no education.
Source: Missed opportunities: the high cost of not educating girls (2018), p.4 -
Nearly 1 in 3 adolescent girls from the poorest households around the world has never set foot in a classroom.
Source: UNICEF, Addressing the learning crisis: An urgent need to better finance education for the poorest children, p.3, January 2020 -
Only 35% of all university students enrolled in STEM-related fields are women.
Source: Cracking the code: girls' and women's education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), UNESCO, 2017, p.11 -
In low income and lower-middle income countries, women account for only a third or less of human capital wealth.
Source: Unrealized potential: the high cost of gender inequality in earnings (2018), p.5 -
Approximately 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to or at school every year.
Source: Global Women’s Institute, School-Based Interventions to Prevent Violence Against Women & Girls, p.2 -
Girls in conflict and crisis-affected contexts are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than their peers in non-conflict settings.
Sources: INEE, 2021 and Brookings 2022.
Inclusive education
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There are nearly 240 million children with disabilities in the world, 1 in 10 of all children worldwide.
Source: UNICEF, Seen, Counted and Included, 2022 -
In low and lower-middle income countries, around 40% of children with disabilities are out of school at primary level and 55% at lower secondary level
Source: UNICEF, Towards Inclusive Education. The impact of disability on school attendance in lower-income countries. 2016 -
As of August 2023, GPE was providing $1.1 billion to strengthen education systems in 17 countries where refugees have access to school.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
In FY23, GPE grants supporting inclusive education amounted to $521 million.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024. p.4
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Children with disabilities are 42% less likely to have essential reading and numeracy skills than other girls and boys.
Source: GPE annual report 2023, p.23 -
In 2020, GPE offered 66 accelerated grants to help countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 80% of them included initiatives that target children with disabilities to ensure learning continuity, such as accessible remote lessons, print materials in Braille, assistive devices and the promotion of supplementary support programs.
Source: GPE Secretariat -
67% of partner countries reported key education statistics disaggregated by children with disabilities.
Source: GPE results report 2022, p.7 -
In 2022, 62,163 children with disabilities were supported through 17 grants that reported these data.
Source: GPE results report 2022, p.72 -
Globally, the share of schools with adapted infrastructure and materials for students with disabilities increased at all levels of education, and most significantly in upper secondary from 46% in 2015 to 56% in 2020.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p.8 -
Approximately one billion people in the world are living with a disability, with at least 1 in 10 being children and 80% living in lower-income countries.
Source: World Report on Disability -
The literacy rate for adults with disabilities is 3%. For women with disabilities the literacy rate is even lower, at 1%
Source: UNGEI. Still left behind: Pathways to inclusive education for girls with disabilities, 2017. p.12 -
In low-income countries, less than half the number of children from poorest households complete primary education, compared to children from the richest households.
Source: United Nations, 2020
Learning and literacy
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7 in 10 children in low- and middle-income countries can't read a simple story by age 10.
Source: World Bank. The State of Global Learning Poverty. 2022 Update. p. 8 -
In FY23, GPE grants supporting learning and literacy total $696 million. They support curriculum and materials, distance learning remedial instruction and instructional/learning time.
Source: GPE grants by priority areas and education levels. April 2024. p. 4 -
70% of partner countries with available data saw improvements in learning outcomes between 2010–15 and 2016–19.
Source: GPE results report 2021. p. 26
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$97 million were invested by GPE in activities related to learning assessments in FY 2023.
Source: GPE Secretariat 2023 -
48 million textbooks have been distributed in GPE partner countries thanks to the support of GPE grants in fiscal year 2023.
Source: GPE results report 2023. p. 10 -
In sub-Saharan Africa, the youth literacy rate has increased from 66% in 2000 to 77.5% in 2020.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p. 7 -
In Central and Southern Asia, the youth literacy rate increased from 87% in 2000 to 91% in 2015 but has only increased by 0.8 percentage points since then.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p. 7 -
PASEC and SACMEQ data found that having their own textbook can increase a child’s literacy scores by up to 20%.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p. 79 -
In 10 out of 14 participating francophone countries in PASEC 2019, reading scores of students with a female head teacher were significantly better than those of students with a male head teacher.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p. 115 -
Employers expect that by 2030, 39% of skills required for jobs today will transform and even become obsolete.
Source: World Economic Forum. 2025. The Future of Jobs Report 2025. (Cologny/Geneva: World Economic Forum) -
As of 2023, 20% of youth worldwide were not in employment, education or training (NEET)—2 in 3 are young women.
Source: International Labour Organisation (ILO). Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 -
In lower-income countries, educational mismatch is a problem for every 2 out of 3 young adult workers, meaning their qualifications do not match the job they have. This mismatch is largely driven by workers being undereducated.
Source: International Labour Organisation (ILO). Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024. p. 15 -
Young people aged 15 to 24 are having difficulty entering the workforce, with youth unemployment rates close to 30 percent in lower-income countries.
Source: International Labour Organisation (ILO). Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 -
In sub-Saharan Africa, although 80% of primary-aged children are enrolled in school, only 62% graduate on time.
Source: The sustainable development goals report 2023. p. 20 -
Globally, the percentage of children one year younger than the official primary entry age who participate in organized learning programs, has remained stable at about 75% between 2015 and 2020.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p. 4 -
Of the 31 low- and lower-middle-income countries for which there are data since 2019, only Viet Nam has a majority of children achieving minimum proficiency in both reading and mathematics at the end of primary school. By contrast, in 18 of these countries, fewer than 10% of children are reaching minimum proficiency in reading and/or in mathematics.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p. 2 -
Only 14 countries representing 15% of the school-age population in Africa have at least two data points on minimum learning proficiency that would allow the long-term trend to be estimated.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p. 43 -
Since 2015, only 19 countries in reading and 18 countries in mathematics have reported data from school surveys.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p. 43 -
In 16 out of 22 sub-Saharan countries, at most one third of students are taught in the language they speak outside of school.
Source: UNESCO. 2022. Spotlight Report on Basic Education Completion and Foundational Learning in Africa, Paris, UNESCO. p. 79 -
90% of children in low-income countries could be left behind in terms of achieving even basic skills by 2030.
Source: Winthrop, R. and L. Ziegler. (2019). Leapfrogging to ensure no child is left without access to a twenty-first century education. (Eds. Homi Kharas, John W. McArthur and Izumi Ohno). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. -
The number of illiterate youth fell from 107 million in 2015 to 99 million in 2020, of which 36 million were in Central and Southern Asia and 49 million were in sub-Saharan Africa. Women are 56% of all illiterate youth.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p. 7 -
Low- and middle-income countries spend 2% of their GDP each year on education costs that do not lead to learning.
Source: The Learning Generation, executive summary, p. 7 -
771 million adults lack basic literacy skills (women account for two thirds).
Source: UIS -
Almost one in four youth in sub-Saharan Africa are illiterate.
Source: 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report: SDG 4 mid-term progress review. p. 8
Peace and security
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On average, countries where more children complete basic education are more peaceful and experience less violence. Societies where more young people – especially women – are engaged in education, employment or training have lower levels of political instability, internal conflict and suffer less from the impacts of terrorism.
Source: GPE and Institute for Economics and Peace. (2024). Key Findings: Education and Peace -
Quality education can be a powerful tool to combat discrimination and build learners' resilience to violent extremism and hateful narratives.
Source: UNESCO. 2023. What you need know about preventing violent extremism through education