A Global Education Crisis (and how to resolve it)

Humans are in trouble.

We’ve always had our problems, but the exponential acceleration of technology and information has at the same time accelerated the rate at which we, as a species, are hurtling toward a number of crises of our own creation: for example, the growing environmental crisis; and the global issue of expanding income disparity.

the World Bank Report Cover

A recent World Bank Report on ending educational poverty (download the full report here) highlights another growing crisis—the fact that in lower-income countries, as much as 90% of ten-year-old students cannot read a simple book—creating what has been called a “Human Capital Deficit.”

The report suggests that the educational crisis is at the heart of all the other crises we are facing. In the same breath, it offers a solution.

Education has been proven to lift people out of poverty. It allows them, in the words of the World Bank report, “to power their careers and economies once they leave school, or the skills that will help them become engaged citizens and nurture healthy, prosperous families.”

Although this might seem to be suggesting that an increase in wealth will fix everything—an attitude which, it could be argued, is a driving force behind a lot of our problems—education does far more than increase an individual’s, community’s, or country’s  capacity for economic growth. As the report goes on to say, there are mountains of evidence showing that education provides “better health outcomes, and greater civic engagement. For societies, education contributes to faster innovation and growth, better-functioning institutions, greater intergenerational social mobility, higher levels of social trust, and a lower likelihood of conflict.”

We at SIL LEAD are especially pleased that a major component of the report’s approach to rectifying the learning deficit is an understanding that it is vital to first teach children in the language they best speak and understand. As the report states, “research has shown that students in early grades who are taught in their home language achieve higher reading comprehension. In fact, research in Sub-Saharan Africa has indicated that learning how to read in one’s home language can help students acquire greater skill in their second language in later years,” and that “Using the home language to instruct students for the early years of schooling not only establishes reading competency; it makes the study of more complex topics possible, and it leads to better outcomes for students when they later read in a second language.”

Building a global population that is educated unleashes human capital, allowing previously powerless people the tools they need to engage meaningfully with market forces that would otherwise ignore and abuse them. Furthermore, this increase in human capital greatly increases the possibility that we will find solutions to our looming problems.

Unfortunately, we are failing to make our goals of universal basic education a reality.

As the report states, only about half the children in lower and middle-income countries are leaving school with the basic, foundational skills they need to survive and thrive.

This is discouraging, but it is not inevitable.  

The World Bank report recognizes that solving a problem that affects all aspects of our lives will require a holistic approach. For example, even with the best of educational resources, a child without a stable family life, good nutrition, and healthy living conditions (such as effective sanitation and clean water) is in no position to actually fully benefit from those resources.

SIL LEAD is committed to serving the entire person, and we agree with the World Bank’s evidence-based conclusion that education is our greatest tool in the war on poverty. Their focus on “learning poverty” as a key metric in identifying problem areas and their commitment to gathering better information will lead to better results. 

It’s a complex problem that requires a complex, multifaceted approach, so for an in-depth look at both the areas where change is needed and the steps that can and must be taken to ensure that change happens, we recommend that you read the report yourself.

Education in and of itself will not automatically solve our problems. But it will unleash the most potent tool humanity has in addressing its problems—humanity itself.