How to Get All Children Learning in One Generation

Education is the civil rights struggle of our generation. My own educational experience in my home country of Tunisia inspired me to take action to help children around the globe.

Today we are facing a global learning crisis. If we don’t change course, the consequences will be disastrous: half of the world’s 1.6 billion children won’t be learning by 2030. This multifaceted problem is fueled by underfunded education systems – many of which are inefficient – and teachers that are stretched too thin.

Here’s the good news: There are concrete steps that can turn this around. We must renew our commitment to investing in education, make smart use of funding and technology, and diversify the education workforce. If successful, it will only take one generation to get all of the world’s children in school and learning.

This is why I joined the Education Commission, a group of leaders from across the world who are summoning the energy and assets necessary to make education for all a reality. We’re driving two major initiatives:

• Pioneer Country Initiative: More than 20 countries in Africa and Asia have committed to making education a priority, and they’re ready to deliver on their promises. The Commission is supporting these “Pioneer Countries” through a two-step process. First, we will help bring all players from a particular country – policymakers, teachers, civil society leaders, private sector companies and beyond – together to agree on concrete education reforms and solutions. Second, they will jointly develop a detailed roadmap to deliver on their commitments and ensure that everything they agreed to is accomplished. This delivery approach was piloted in Tanzania and has produced impressive results in other parts of the world. 
• Financing: Domestic investment must be the backbone of education, but many countries have a very difficult time borrowing the additional money they need to fully invest in education. This is particularly true if countries are stuck in the “middle-income trap” – they’re not poor enough to get grants or interest-free loans from international sources, and they’re not rich enough to have attractive interest on their loans. Our innovative solution is to create a finance facility to pool donor money and use it to subsidize or eliminate interest payments on loans for education. This will allow countries to borrow money, pay it back over time, and benefit from a better educated and more skilled population. The leaders at the 2017 G20 acknowledged and endorsed this idea.

I am excited that the Education Commission’s efforts have put education front and center on the global agenda, but there is much more work to be done. Providing quality education for all is the freedom fight of our time – and we’ve got to win it.

Click here to see my TED Talk on the Education Commission’s efforts to get every child in school and learning.