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Toward equitable, quality education for all: The importance of recognizing learning and skills

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, allyson parco , allyson parco former research analyst - global economy and development , center for universal education rohan carter-rau , and rohan carter-rau research analyst - global economy and development , center for universal education annelies goger annelies goger fellow - brookings metro.

October 17, 2022

World leaders converged in New York City for the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly ( UNGA ) last month. With access to quality education top of mind in the wake of tremendous learning losses during COVID-19, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convened stakeholders for the Transforming Education Summit at UNGA to address the lack of progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which aims to ensure access to quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Alongside these high-impact events, the Brookings Institution and the Learning Economy Foundation co-hosted a set of side events focused on connecting the urgent need to address educational inequities with the surge in use of digital learning tools. There has been rapid growth in education technology platforms and demand for skills and career opportunities, but most of the products are based in wealthy Western countries. Even in these wealthy countries, there is a significant digital divide and limited data governance. The goal of our events was to develop consensus around what it will take to build a more equitable and ethical education technology infrastructure across a diverse range of country settings.

Drawing from the discussions in the full-day symposium on September 20 and focused policy debate on September 22, we identified four major themes.

1. The urgency to get back on track to achieve SDG 4

The world is currently off track in achieving SDG 4. The pandemic caused school closures in 191 countries and 1.5 billion students transitioned into online learning platforms ( UNESCO, 2021 ). Ethel Agnes Pascua-Valenzuela, director of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Secretariat, highlighted the importance of managing change in times of crisis. She noted that in early 2020, most students and teachers struggled to access education online, but by 2021, schools had figured out hybrid teaching, use of online videos for education, and other digital education technologies. Yet, she reminded the audience, “Most teachers don’t have internet. They don’t have devices … . It is so important to be thinking about the least privileged.” Without proactive effort, there is a serious risk that ongoing digitizing of the education system will leave many vulnerable populations even further behind.

2. The importance of partnerships and engagement of diverse voices

Building an education technology ecosystem that aligns with SDG 4 requires intentional effort and collaboration across stakeholders and areas of work that tend to operate separately, such as data governance, education, labor, and business. Policymakers and technical experts need to be at the same tables and learn to speak the same language. These conversations also need to bring in the voices of teachers and young learners, who are often not present in these future-shaping dialogues.

The idea of using public–private partnerships (PPPs) to incorporate technologies into education through platforms and services was controversial. Some stakeholders see PPPs as the best way to expand access to digital learning opportunities, because in resource-constrained environments, the public sector cannot accomplish this alone. Others questioned whether corporate profit motives undermine the goal of equity in education, due to lack of willingness to allocate resources to low-income countries and communities. Borhene Chakroun, director of the division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems at UNESCO, was emphatic in recognizing that countries cannot build education technology infrastructure by themselves but highlighted that “The most important partnership is not with the company; it is with the community.”

3. User-centered processes and tools that give people control over their own data

Technical experts discussed digital credentials and decentralized digital wallets as ways learners can gain control of their own education data. Conversation on this topic highlighted the need for sovereignty –that technology infrastructure should be built with user ownership and agency in mind. At the policy debate, Thaís Queiroz, a youth representative of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, emphatically spoke about how important it is to have control over personal data. Queiroz shared the stark differences in how technology use and regulation is governed in Brazil, her home country, and in Germany, where she currently lives. She said that once she got to Germany, she started realizing how much information about her and her peers had been gathered, and there was no way to control its removal or who could see and access it.

Many speakers also highlighted the importance of trust for the success of digital credentials. If learners do not have agency or trust that a digital credential will make a meaningful difference in their career or improve their interactions with potential employers, and if employers have no trust that the credentials legitimately convey value, then the entire approach falls apart.

4. The need to recognize learning across borders and in a diversity of settings

Another major issue many participants raised was recognizing learning across geographic and sectoral borders. Saghar Salehi, a youth representative and former member of the Afghan girls’ robotics team , highlighted her struggles to have her diploma recognized when she came to the U.S. as a refugee, noting that some institutions would not accept it or would require her to take classes over. Attendees also discussed how being able to capture a wider range of skills in a digital credential and even recognize informal and non-formal learning, such as leadership experience gained in community service, would be powerful for employers to identify talent and for learners to achieve their education and career goals.

As the shifts toward skill and competency-based learning grow, the education technology community remains focused on strategies to achieve SDG 4with diverse collaboration, connectivity, and global advocacy in higher education. Although new technologies show great promise for helping learners access and document their learning, experts shared concerns surrounding data privacy, data ownership, and digital divides. The 77th session of UNGA and the Transforming Education Summit began valuable discussions for the international community, and we are continuing to work with partners in this area to explore how principles of sovereignty, equity, and mobility can be designed into the education technology ecosystem.

Social media engagement can be found through the @BrookingsGlobal and @Learnonomy Twitter accounts.

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Ending Poverty Through Education: The Challenge of Education for All

About the author, koïchiro matsuura.

From Vol. XLIV, No. 4, "The MDGs: Are We on Track?",  December 2007

T he world made a determined statement when it adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. These goals represent a common vision for dramatically reducing poverty by 2015 and provide clear objectives for significant improvement in the quality of people's lives. Learning and education are at the heart of all development and, consequently, of this global agenda. MDG 2 aims to ensure that children everywhere -- boys and girls -- will be able to complete a full course of good quality primary schooling. MDG 3 targets to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. Indeed, learning is implicit in all the MDGs: improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS simply cannot be achieved without empowering individuals with knowledge and skills to better their lives. In addition, MDG 8 calls for "more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction". The MDGs on education echo the Education for All (EFA) goals, also adopted in 2000. However, the EFA agenda is much broader, encompassing not only universal primary education and gender equality, but also early childhood education, quality lifelong learning and literacy. This holistic approach is vital to ensuring full enjoyment of the human right to education and achieving sustainable and equitable development. What progress have we made towards universal primary education? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 -- Education for All by 2015: Will we make it? -- presents an overall assessment of progress at the halfway point between 2000 and 2015. There is much encouraging news, including: • Between 1999 and 2005, the number of children entering primary school for the first time grew by 4 per cent, from 130 million to 135 million, with a jump of 36 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa -- a major achievement, given the strong demographic growth in the region. • Overall participation in primary schooling worldwide grew by 6.4 per cent, with the fastest growth in the two regions farthest from achieving the goal on education -- sub-Saharan Africa, and South and West Asia. • Looking at the net enrolment ratio, which measures the share of children of primary school age who are enrolled, more than half the countries of North America, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean have rates of over 90 per cent. Ratios are lower in the Arab States, Central Asia and South and West Asia, with lows of 33 per cent (Djibouti) and 68 per cent (Pakistan). The challenge is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than one third of countries have rates below 70 per cent. • The number of children out of school has dropped sharply, from 96 million in 1999 to around 72 million by 2005, with the biggest change in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, which continue to harbour the largest percentages of children not in school. South and West Asia has the highest share of girls out of school. The MDG on education specifies that both boys and girls should receive a full course of primary schooling. The gender parity goal set for 2005, however, has not been achieved by all. Still, many countries have made significant progress. In South and West Asia, one of the regions with the widest disparities, 93 girls for every 100 boys were in school in 2005 -- up from 82 in 1999. Yet, globally, 122 out of the 181 countries with data had not achieved gender parity in 2005. There is much more to be done, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, but there are strong trends in the right direction. This overall assessment indicates that progress in achieving universal primary education is positive. Countries where enrolments rose sharply generally increased their education spending as a share of gross national product. Public expenditure on education has climbed by over 5 per cent annually in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. Aid to basic education in low-income countries more than doubled between 2000 and 2004. Progress has been achieved through universal and targeted strategies. Some 14 countries have abolished primary school fees since 2000, a measure that has promoted enrolment of the most disadvantaged children. Several countries have established mechanisms to redistribute funds to poorer regions and target areas that are lagging in terms of access to education, and to offset economic barriers to schooling for poor households. Many countries, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India and Yemen, have introduced specific strategies to encourage girls' schooling, such as community sensitization campaigns, early childhood centres to release girls from caring for their siblings, free uniforms and learning materials. These strategies are working and reflect strong national commitment to achieving universal primary education. Enrolment, however, is only half the story; children need to stay in primary school and complete it. One way of measuring this is the survival rate to the last grade of primary education. Although data are not available for every country, globally the rate of survival to the last grade is 87 per cent. This masks wide regional variations, with medians of over 90 per cent all over the world, except in South and West Asia (79%) and sub-Saharan Africa (63%). Even then, some children drop out in the last grade and never complete primary education, with some countries showing a gap of 20 per cent between those who enter the last grade and those who complete it. One of the principal challenges is to improve the quality of learning and teaching. Cognitive skills, basic competencies and life-skills, as well as positive values and attitudes, are all essential for development at individual, community and national levels. In a world where the acquisition, use and sharing of knowledge are increasingly the key to poverty reduction and social development, the need for quality learning outcomes becomes a necessary essential condition for sharing in the benefits of growing prosperity. What children take away from school, and what youth and adults acquire in non-formal learning programmes, should enable them, as expressed in the four pillars of the 1996 Delors report, Learning: The Treasure Within, to learn to know, to do, to be and to live together. Governments are showing growing concern about the poor quality of education. An increasing number of developing countries are participating in international and regional learning assessments, and conducting their own. Evidence shows that up to 40 per cent of students do not reach minimum achievement standards in language and mathematics. Pupils from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds and those with access to books consistently perform better than those from poorer backgrounds with limited access to reading materials. Clear messages emerge from these studies. In primary education, quality learning depends, first and foremost, on the presence of enough properly trained teachers. But pupil/teacher ratios have increased in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia since 1999. Some 18 million new teachers are needed worldwide to reach universal primary education by 2015. Other factors have a clear influence on learning: a safe and healthy physical environment, including, among others, appropriate sanitation for girls; adequate learning and teaching materials; child-centred curricula; and sufficient hours of instruction (at least 800 hours a year). Initial learning through the mother tongue has a proven impact on literacy acquisition. Transparent and accountable school governance, among others, also affects the overall learning environment. What then are the prospects for achieving universal primary education and gender parity? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 puts countries into two categories depending on their current net enrolment rate: 80 to 96 per cent, and less than 80 per cent. For each category, it then assesses whether current rates of progress are likely to enable each country to reach the goal by 2015. Noting that 63 countries worldwide have already achieved the goal and 54 countries cannot be included in the analysis due to lack of adequate data, the status is as follows: Out of the 95 countries unlikely to achieve gender parity by 2015, 14 will not achieve it in primary education and 52 will not attain it at the secondary level. A further 29 countries will fail to achieve parity in both primary and secondary education. The international community must focus on giving support to those countries that are currently not on track to meet the MDGs and the EFA goals, and to those that are making progress. On current trends, and if pledges are met, bilateral aid to basic education will likely reach $5 billion a year in 2010. This remains well below the $9 billion required to reach universal primary education alone; an additional $2 billion are needed to address the wider context of educational development. Ensuring that adults, particularly mothers, are literate has an impact on whether their children, especially their daughters, attend school. In today's knowledge-intensive societies, 774 million adults are illiterate -- one in four of them women. Early learning and pre-school programmes give children a much better chance to survive and succeed once they enter primary school, but such opportunities are few and far between across most of the developing world, except in Latin America and the Caribbean. Opportunities for quality secondary education and ongoing learning programmes provide motivation for students to achieve the highest possible level of education and view learning as a lifelong endeavour. The goals towards which we are striving are about the fundamental right to education that should enable every child and every adult to develop their potential to the full, so that they contribute actively to societal change and enjoy the benefits of development. The challenge now is to ensure that learning opportunities reach all children, youth and adults, regardless of their background. This requires inclusive policies to reach the most marginalized, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations -- the working children, those with disabilities, indigenous groups, linguistic minorities and populations affected by HIV/AIDS.

Globally, the world has set its sights on sustainable human development, the only prospect for reducing inequalities and improving the quality of life for present and future generations. In this perspective, Governments, donors and international agencies must continue working jointly towards achieving universal primary education and the broader MDG agenda with courage, determination and unswerving commitment. To find out more about the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, please visit ( www.efareport.unesco.org ).

The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

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Education for all: Exploring the principle and process of inclusive education

• Introduction
• Published: 13 April 2016
• Volume 62 , pages 131–137, ( 2016 )

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More than seventy years have passed since the twenty initial signatories to UNESCO’s Constitution proclaimed their belief in “full and equal opportunities for education for all” (UNESCO 1945 , p. 2). This principle was reaffirmed three years later in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26), which states unambiguously that “Everyone has the right to education” (UN 1948 ). There is no denying the advances which have been made since the Second World War in terms of access to education. To take just one key indicator – adult literacy – we can observe a dramatic progression from the 1950s, when UNESCO estimated that just a slight majority (55%) of the world’s population could be termed “literate” (UNESCO 1957 ), to the present day, when that same designation is applied to 86 per cent of humanity (UNESCO 2015 ). However, not even the greatest optimist would argue that we are anywhere close to realising the vision set out in 1945. Despite repeated initiatives and targets (notably at Jomtien in 1990 and Dakar in 2000, and with the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals), Education for All remains elusive. Is it simply that a vision of equal opportunity is no less utopian than one of wealth equally divided; that this pie we hope to slice more equitably is really just pie in the sky? The problem appears to lie with the fact that inequality – in education, as in other areas of human life – tends to be systemic rather than specific. Thus, “making inclusive education a reality requires transforming education systems in all their elements and processes across formal and non-formal education” (UNESCO 2013 ). And “system change” is a tricky business.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that education and economic development go hand in hand. Not only is lack of education generally recognised as a cause of poverty, it has come to be recognised as one of three core “dimensions of poverty”, alongside living standard and health (World Bank 2016 ). Despite strong economic growth throughout most of the so-called “developing world”, poverty persists, and at levels which are causing many observers to doubt the meaning of “development”. It thus becomes ever more important to understand the relationship between equity and development. Equity is not merely equivalent to a process of inclusion; of ensuring equal access to a specific “good”, such as healthcare, education or income. It is also an objective ideal whereby achievements depend on personal effort, choice and initiative rather than on predetermined characteristics such as race, gender and socioeconomic background. As such, equity is a moral principle predicated on the belief that all people should enjoy equal access to chances in life.

While evidence suggests that education builds healthier, richer, more equitable societies, research on this has focused predominantly on primary and secondary schooling. The authors of our first paper – Chavanne Peercy and Nanette Svenson – examine “The role of higher education in equitable human development”. They begin with an extensive review of existing research, then report on their own study which explored connections between tertiary education and development using equity as a reflection of human development. They carried out a cross-national statistical analysis designed to examine the relationship between tertiary enrolment levels and a composite equity variable. Their results indicate a strong association between higher levels of access to post-secondary education and higher levels of social equity.

Our next article considers educational development. Composed of more than 7,000 islands, and with a population exceeding 100 million, the Philippines is one of the most marine-dependent countries in the world. It is therefore a country for which sustainable development is not merely desirable but imperative. Not only is this archipelago particularly vulnerable to the risks associated with global warming, such as unpredictable weather and rising sea levels, but tens of millions of Filipinos depend directly on marine fisheries for their livelihoods and food security. Education has a crucial role to play in sustaining these vulnerable resources. Educational development in the Philippines is complicated by the legacy of three centuries of colonialism: huge income inequality and a widely dispersed, multilingual and multi-ethnic population. However, that should not imply a lack of progress. For example, according to the 2015 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, the Philippines reached the target of raising the adult literacy rate by 50 per cent compared to the 2000 level (UNESCO 2015 ).

Adult education is the focus of the article entitled “Sustainable development of Philippine coastal resources: Subsidiarity in ethnoecology through inclusive participatory education”. It applies the principles of ethnoecology (the study of the relationship between society and natural resources) to adult education for sustainable development. Specifically, the authors – Joey Ayala, Pauline Bautista, Marivic Pajaro, Mark Raquino and Paul Watts – describe and evaluate a pilot adult education initiative undertaken to help fisherfolk better manage marine resources. While earlier adult education initiatives aimed at this group had limited success, in part due to a lack of cultural context, this project applied a Filipino form of social artistry known as Siningbayan [art whose canvas is society] to identify potential input strategies. Thus, culture was treated not only as a historical resource, but also as a potential tool for change. The authors place particular emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity, meaning in essence a high sensitivity to local culture and knowledge, in considering how to transfer information to fishing communities and expand their roles in leadership, organisational and professional development.

It was no accident that the United Nations, when drafting the Sustainable Development Goals, placed poverty eradication front and centre as Goal 1. Yet, efforts to lift people out of poverty often appear antagonistic to environmental protection. This has certainly been the case in China, where rapid economic growth and astonishing success in poverty reduction pursued with the rationale of “grow first, clean up later” has resulted in immense environmental destruction (Economist 2013 ). There are both moral and practical cases for making poverty eradication a central pillar of sustainable development. Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen expressed the moral argument succinctly: “Sustaining deprivation cannot be our goal” (Anand and Sen 2000 , p. 2030). The practical argument is more subtle but equally compelling: poverty is one of the main drivers of instability and conflict. In the words of the Brundtland Report, the seminal document on sustainable development, “A world in which poverty and inequity are endemic will always be prone to ecological and other crises” (WCED 1987 , p. 34).

When South Africa finally shook off the shackles of apartheid, much hope was invested in the potential of adult education to reduce poverty and redress the systemic exclusion of Black and “coloured” citizens from education, training and economic opportunity. The legislative framework for this drive was provided by the Adult Education and Training (AET) Act 25 of 2010. Yet, despite impressive enrolment figures in a variety of non-formal education and training (NFET) programmes, poverty in South Africa is still starkly determined by skin colour (Leibbrandt et al. 2010 ). In a companion study to their paper in this journal last year (Mayombe and Lombard 2015 ), Celestin Mayombe and Antoinette Lombard examine the efficacy of material and human resources in non-formal education and training centres. Their earlier paper explored in general terms the importance of “enabling environments”, namely the aspects of NFET centres that are conducive to the acquisition of skills and their application in employment. This paper, entitled “The importance of material resources and qualified trainers in adult non-formal education and training centres in South Africa”, now focuses on three specific elements of that enabling: (1) how material resources enable or disable graduates’ practical skills acquisition; (2) how trainers’ qualifications enable or disable graduates’ practical skills acquisition; and (3) how material and human resources enable or disable graduates’ employment.

Their results show that material and human resource challenges in most public and some private centres have led to gaps in skills training. Programmes focus too strongly on academic credits and certificates and not enough on employment as an end goal. The authors argue that the existence of suitable training materials and qualified trainers with practical experience and specific technical skills constitutes favourable conditions (“enabling environments”) for graduate employment. Without improvement in material and human resources, adult trainees will continue to experience difficulties entering the labour market, and the cycle of poverty and exclusion is likely to remain unbroken.

In the last two decades, several countries in East and Southeast Asia have taken a global lead in the provision of lifelong learning opportunities to all of their citizens. While policies and programmes take diverse forms – from Japan’s kominkan [community learning centres] to the Republic of Korea’s Lifelong Education Act (first enacted in 1999); from China’s Learning Cities to Singapore’s Community Development Councils – they have in common a close identification with the idea of lifelong learning and a profound commitment to the goal of building a learning society. We may speculate as to the “why” of this – some suggest it is closely linked to Confucian ethics – but not to the “what” (Yang and Yorozu 2015 ). All of the four countries mentioned above boast high levels of participation and achievement in education – all the more astonishing considering this was a region marked by extreme poverty just a half-century ago (UIS 2016 ). Viet Nam is a fairly recent entrant to this “club”. Long restrained by the legacy of a terrible war and subsequent isolation, Viet Nam is now keen to learn from its regional neighbours and follow them in developing knowledge economies.

In his article entitled “Towards a lifelong learning society through reading promotion: Opportunities and challenges for libraries and community learning centres in Viet Nam”, author Zakir Hossain reviews governmental and non-governmental initiatives on reading promotion in pursuit of the Vietnamese government’s stated goal of becoming a lifelong learning society by 2020. He describes the recent explosive proliferation of community learning centres (CLCs) – from just 10 in 1999 to 11,000 in 2015 – and public libraries and reading rooms (estimated at 23,000 in 2008). These centres promote reading culture and provide programmes on literacy, post-literacy and life skills such as income generation, healthcare and family planning. In some cases, they also offer agricultural training and cultural and sporting activities. In addition, the author details the more recent involvement of NGOs and private enterprise in the provision of learning opportunities. He concludes his paper with detailed recommendations for further development under five main headings: marketing and outreach; improved use of ICTs by librarians; promotion of e-libraries and e-books; collaboration between schools, libraries and CLCs; and partnership building.

We conclude this issue with a short research note which takes a critical look at “The new language of instruction policy in Malawi: A house standing on a shaky foundation”. This paper by Gregory Hankoni Kamwendo examines a new policy which positions English as the medium of instruction from the start of primary education in a country where English is not the main language of household communication and many teachers struggle to use English as a medium of instruction. As absurd as it may sound to force children to learn and teachers to teach in a language neither of them master, this is the reality in many African primary and most secondary schools. This process is driven to a considerable degree by international donors motivated either by the belief that the plurality of languages used in most African countries necessitates the use of a (colonial) lingua franca , or by a desire to promote their own language in their former colonies. It has been described as an “intellectual recolonization of Africa” by Birgit Brock-Utne ( 2000 , p. 289) in her book Whose Education for All? It not only flies in the face of empirical evidence that mother tongue is the most effective medium of instruction, especially in primary education, but raises the spectre of educational policies and practices which are inclusive but inequitable (UNESCO 2016 ).

As this is the first general issue of IRE this year, I would now like to acknowledge the vital support provided entirely as a service of honour by our peer reviewers. I extend my gratitude and appreciation to the following individuals who reviewed articles for general and special issues in 2015:

Helen Abadzi, University of Texas at Arlington, United States of America

Christel Adick, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Abdel Rahamane Baba-Moussa, University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin

Herman Baert, KU Leuven, Belgium

Supriya Baily, George Mason University, United States of America

Zvi Bekerman, Hebrew University, Israel

Stephanie Bengtsson, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

Sandra Bohlinger, Technical University Dresden, Germany

Mark Bray, University of Hong Kong, China

Birgit Brock-Utne, University of Oslo, Norway

Mette Buchardt, Aalborg University, Denmark

Kenneth Cushner, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Martial Dembélé, University of Montreal, Canada

Cecille DePass, University of Calgary, Canada

XiaoJiong Ding, Shanghai Normal University, China

Nadia Edmond, University of Brighton, United Kingdom

Maren Elfert, University of British Columbia, Canada

Justin Ellis, Turning Points Consultancy CC, Namibia

Karen Evans, University of London, United Kingdom

John Field, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

Siri Gaarder Brock-Utne, Tromsø Fengsel, Norway

Anthony Gallagher, Southampton Solent University, United Kingdom

Macleans Anthony Geo-JaJa, Brigham Young University, United States of America

Christine Glanz, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Germany

Candido Gomes, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

César Guadalupe, Universidad del Pacífico, Peru

Bernard Hagnonnou, Institute ALPHADEV, Benin

M Ulrike Hanemann, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Germany

Günter Hefler, 3 s research laboratory, Austria

John Holford, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Ulla Højmark Jensen, Aalborg University, Denmark

Halla Holmarsdottir, Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway

John D. Holst, University of St. Thomas, United States of America

Nuir Houston, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Timothy Denis Ireland, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

Swarna Jayaweera, Centre for Women’s Research, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Tim Jensen, Syddansk University, Denmark

Thierry Karsenti, University of Montreal, Canada

Brij Kothari, Indian Institute of Management; India

Lisa Krolak, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Germany

Leslie Limage, Paris, France

Jyri Manninen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland

Aïcha Maherzi, University of Toulouse II, France

Suzanne Majhanovich, Western University, Canada

Laouali Malam Moussa, Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa, Niger

Vandra Masemann, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada

Peter Mayo, University of Malta, Malta

Veronica McKay, University of South Africa

Kurt Meredith, University of Northern Iowa, United States of America

Stanley Mpofu, National University of Science & Technology, Zimbabwe

Virginie Blanche Ngah, University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon

Norbert Nikièma, University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Bridget O’Connor, New York University, United States of America

Marie Odile Paulet, Toulouse, France

Moses Oketch, University College London, United Kingdom

Paul Paulus, University of Texas at Arlington, United States of America

Bruno Poellhuber, University of Montréal, Canada

Esther Prins, Pennsylvania State University, United States of America

Steffi Roback, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

Jean Baptiste Joseph Rakotozafy Harison, University of Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

Hubertus Roebben, Technical University of Dortmund, Germany

Alan Rogers, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom

Kjell Rubenson, University of British Columbia, Canada

Sylvia Schmelkes, Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación, Mexico

Bill Scott, University of Bath, United Kingdom

Peter Scott, University of London, United Kingdom

Syed Yusuf Shah, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Daniel N Sifuna, Kenyatta University, Kenya

Ralf St. Clair, McGill University, Canada

Doyle Stevick, University of South Carolina, United States of America

Darko Štrajn, Educational Research Institute, Slovenia

Robert Strathdee, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Nelly Stromquist, University of Maryland, United States of America

Nisha Thapliya, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom

Alan Tuckett, University of Leicester, United Kingdom

Carlos Vargas, UNESCO, France

Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Dayong Yuan, Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences, China

Takako Yuki, JICA Research Institute, Japan

Malak Zaalouk, American University in Cairo, Egypt

Nick Zepke, Massey University, New Zealand

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Roche, S. Education for all: Exploring the principle and process of inclusive education. Int Rev Educ 62 , 131–137 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-016-9556-7

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Here’s How Data Can Help Unlock Education Equity

Tc’s renzhe yu, alex bowers, and youmi suk break down their ongoing, different approaches to the same goal: high quality education for all.

Now more than ever, educational equity — ensuring all students have access to meaningful educational opportunities, from college preparation and career assistance to support resources to civic participation — is crucial across America. However, the journey towards educational equity demands a multifaceted approach, with cross-collaboration and data at the helm. That’s where a core aspect of TC’s educator preparation and overall ethos comes into play, seeking to narrow the opportunity gaps millions of U.S. students face. 

While The Center for Educational Equity , established in 2005, focuses on research and policy around fair school funding and civic participation, three TC faculty members are finding unique ways to leverage data for equity. Renzhe Yu , Assistant Professor of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining, is leveraging data analytics to uncover the unintended consequences of the rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence. Alex Bowers , Professor of Education Leadership, is showcasing the power of learning analytics and interoperable data sets to identify and address critical indicators of equity. Youmi Suk , Assistant Professor of Applied Statistics, is harnessing big educational data and cutting-edge machine learning methods to address questions about equity and fairness in educational practice.

Renzhe Yu, Assistant Professor of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining; Alex Bowers, Professor of Education Leadership; Youmi Suk, Assistant Professor of Applied Statistics (Photo: TC Archives)

• To reveal the bias and unintended consequences of generative artificial intelligence , Renzhe Yu performs large-scale data analytics.
• In order to identify issues of equity in a transparent way, Alex Bowers utilizes learning analytics and public data.
• Working to improve test fairness and curriculum planning , Youmi Suk draws connections between psychometrics, causal inference and algorithmic fairness.

(Image: iStock)

How Data Analytics Can Address the Growing Digital Divides

Stemming from Yu’s interest in learning how to “equip ourselves to better address existing issues related to education inequity,” his most pressing research focuses on understanding how the mass adoption of generative artificial intelligence has exacerbated digital divides in schools and institutions. Explored in a forthcoming working paper, the project uses large-scale text data from the education system to examine differences in everyday teaching and learning experiences as well as institutional attitudes toward generative AI.

“There are students who are more tech-savvy, there are instructors who are more experienced in using technologies, there are institutions that are more open-minded…and they have probably taken good advantage of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in the past year,” explains Yu. But there’s also a significant number of students, parents, instructors, and institutions that don’t have that kind of access or awareness. “Although it’s just one year, the emergence of this technology may have widened these gaps,” says Yu.

To explore this growing divide, Yu and his research team focused on real-world data sources instead of conducting lab-controlled experiments in order to see how these relationships are playing out in real life. Because of his familiarity with the tech industry and the still-common impulse to innovate without considering the way that entire populations can be left behind, Yu says, “it’s really important to identify these unintended consequences in the early phase of life for these technologies.”

Yu’s other research interest in algorithmic bias — where he has long been exploring how algorithms used for decision making are treating learners differently based on race or other socio-demographic markers — is also made more urgent by the emergence of generative AI tools because if biased algorithms are “having dynamic conversations with students, [as is the case with generative AI,] the negative consequences of any bias in the process would be even more concerning.”

Ultimately, Yu hopes that his work provides perspective that is often ignored in the innovation process in order to create an education system that achieves equity with the help of advanced technology. 

How Data Can Inform Equity Efforts in School Policy and Conversation

Meanwhile, Bowers is looking at new ways school leaders can use reliable, evidence-based data practices to support equity efforts in schools nationwide. “One of my goals is to help bring communities together around the data that already exists for them—that’s already available, and help empower those communities,” he explains.

His recent work focuses on building collaboration with urban schools to identify data-driven equity practices and outcomes in education. In using a multidimensional framework, Bowers is hoping to facilitate more meaningful discussions with school communities by moving away from stigmatizing variables like standardized test scores and graduation rates.

“I think school districts are excited to have a definition of equity that they can bring into these community conversations, both with the school board, but also with teachers, parents, students.”

The project is fueled by his earlier research , which explores the value of interoperable, equitable datasets, along with a report that he co-authored with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP). The comprehensive report details the 16 indicators for assessing equity in education, including academic outcomes like test scores, graduation rates, behavioral data, and opportunities such as student engagement, access to quality learning, pre-K experiences, and more.These indicators give administrators and teachers a more transparent lens to examine school performance.

“It can help us move into a framework of, "How are we serving our students?" "Are we serving our communities?" It's moving away from fixating on the gaps and the outcomes and [instead] trying to problem solve as a collaborative opportunity through which we can bring in existing data.”

How Interdisciplinary Approaches to Analyzing Data Can Promote Fairness

For clearer reading.

Causal Inference: An interdisciplinary subfield that determines the cause of an observed effect by considering assumptions, design and estimation strategies.

Psychometrics: A subfield of psychology centered on theories and applications of measurement, assessment and testing.

A leading researcher exploring test accommodation effectiveness, Suk takes a multi-pronged approach to her main research goal of “developing and applying quantitative methods to address practical and important problems in the educational, social, and behavioral sciences.” One of her central projects is forging a connection between test fairness, a field of study that has been developed over 60 years, and algorithmic fairness, an emerging field with high stakes as algorithmic models are utilized in all aspects of life. 

“We can leverage the people, the methods and the concepts developed in test fairness in order to facilitate understanding of algorithmic fairness,” says Suk who is incorporating psychometrics and causal inference concepts into her work. “And it can go both ways. If there's any new discussion happening around algorithm fairness, we can leverage that discussion to make assessments and tests fairer.” As a part of this work, Suk is crafting new frameworks to investigate test fairness on the individual level instead of on the group level, based on the discussions on individual fairness within the algorithmic fairness research.

Her work is also directly informing her recent research on fair and personalized math curriculum recommendations for high school students, funded by the National Science Foundation. It’s known that students get the most benefit from personalized recommendations but “we have to be aware there may be some unconscious bias [in the recommendations],” explains Suk. To address this, Suk is applying algorithmic fairness constraints to create more equitable recommendations for high school students.

Through her varied research, Suk ultimately hopes to “create equitable and fair testing environments for all students and personalized curriculum plans that empower every student to succeed.”

— Sherri Gardner and Jaqueline Teschon

Tags: Evaluation & Learning Analytics Bias Education Leadership Evaluation & Learning Analytics

Programs: Applied Statistics Cognitive Science in Education Education Leadership Learning Analytics Measurement and Evaluation

Departments: Human Development Organization & Leadership

Published Monday, Apr 22, 2024

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World Declaration on Education for All

World declaration on education for all and framework for action to meet basic learning need, 5-9 march 1990 (full text).

More than 40 years ago, the nations of the world, speaking through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserted that “everyone has a right to education ” . Despite notable efforts by countries around the globe to ensure the right to education for all, the following realities persist:

• More than 100 million children, including at least 60 million girls, have no access to primary schooling;

• More than 960 million adults, two – thirds of whom are women, are illiterate, and functional illiteracy is a significant problem in all countries, industrialized and developing;

• More than one-third of the world’s adults have no access to the printed knowledge, new skills and technologies that could improve the quality of their lives and help them shape, and adapt to, social and cultural change; and

More than 100 million child ren and countless adults fail to complete basic education programmes; millions more satisfy the attendance requirements but do not acquire essential knowledge and skills;

At the same time, the world faces daunting problems, notably: mounting debt burdens , the threat of economic stagnation and decline, rapid population growth, widening economic disparities among and within nations, war, occupation , civil strife, violent crime, the preventable deaths of millions of childrenand widespread environmental degradation. These problems constrain efforts to meet basic learning needs, while the lack of basic education among a significant proportion of the population prevents societies from add ressing such problems with strength and purpose.

These problems have led to major setbacks in basic education in the 1980s in many of the least developed countries. In some other countries, economic growth has been available to finance education expansion , but even so, many millions remain in poverty and unschooled or illiterate. In certain industrialized countries too, cut backs in government expenditure over the 1980s have led to the deterioration of education.

Yet the world is also at the threshold of a new century, with all its promise and possibilities. Today, there is genuine progress toward peaceful detente and greater cooperation among nations. Today, the essential rights and capacities of women are being realized. Today, there are many useful scientific and cultural developments. Today, the sheer quantity of information available in the world – much of it relevant to survival and basic well-being – is exponentially greater than that available only a few years ago , and the rate of its growth is accelerating. This includes information about obtaining more life-enhancing knowledge – or learning how to learn. A synergistic effect occurs when important information is coupled with another modern advance – our new capacity to communicate.

These new forces, when combined with the cumulative experience of reform, innovation, research and the remark able educational progress of many countries, make the goal of basic education for all – for the first time in history – an attainable goal.

Therefore, we participants in the World Conference on Education for All, assembled in Jomtien, Thailand, from 5 to 9 March, 1990:

Recalling that education is a fundamental right for all people, women and men, of all ages, throughout our world;

Understanding that education can help ensure a safer, healthier, more prosperous and environmentally sound world, while simultaneously contributing to social, economic, and cultural progress, tolerance, and international cooperation;

Knowing that education is an indispensable key to, though not a sufficient condition for, personal and social improvement;

Recognizing that traditional knowledge and indigenous cultural heritage have a value and validity in their own right and a capacity to both define and promote development;

Acknowledging that, overall, the current provision of education is seriously deficient and that it must be made more relevant and qualitatively improved, and made universally available;

Recognizing that sound basic education is fundamental to the strengthening of higher levels of education and of scientific and technological literacy and capacity and thus to self – reliant development; and

Recognizing the necessity to give to present and coming generations an expanded vision of, and a renewed commitment to, basic education to address the scale and complexity of the challenge;

proclaiming the following:

World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs.

Education for all : the purpose, article i – meeting basic learning needs.

1 . Every person – child, youth and adult – shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed to meet their basic learning needs. These needs comprise both essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral expression, numeracy, and problem solving) and the basic learning content (such as knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and to continue learning. The scope of basic learning needs and how they should be met varies with individual countries and cultures, and inevitably, changes with the passage of time.

2 . The satisfaction of these needs empowers individuals in any society and confers upon them a responsibility to respect and build upon their collective cultural, linguistic and spiritual heritage, to promote the education of others, to further the cause of social justice, to achieve environmental protection, to be tolerant towards social, political and religious systems which differ from their own, ensuring that commonly accepted humanistic values and human rights are upheld, and to work for international peace and solidarity in an interdependent world.

3 . Another and no less fundamental aim of educational development is the transmission and enrichment of common cultural and moral values. It is in these values that the individual and society find their identity and worth.

4 . Basic education is more than an end in itself. It is the foundation for lifelong learning and human development on which countries may build, systematically, further levels and types of education and training.

EDUCATION FOR ALL : AN EXPANDED VISION AND A RENEWED COMMITMENT

Article ii – shaping the vision.

1 . To serve the basic learning needs of all requires more than a recommitment to basic education as it now exists. What is needed is an “expanded vision” that surpasses present resource levels, institutional structures, curricula, and conventional delivery systems while building on the best in current practices. New possibilities exist today which result from the convergence of the increase in information and the unprecedented capacity to communicate. We must seize them with creativity and a determination for increased effectiveness.

2 . As elaborated in Articles III-VII, the expanded vision encompasses:

• Universalizing access and promoting equity;

• Focussing on learning;

• Broadening the means and scope of basic education;

• Enhancing the environment for learning;

• Strengthening partnerships.

3 . The realization of an enormous potential for human progress and empowerment is contingent upon whether people can be enabled to acquire the education and the start needed to tap into the ever- expanding pool of relevant knowledge and the new means for sharing this knowledge.

ARTICLE 3 • UNIVERSALIZING ACCESS AND PROMOTING EQUITY

1 . Basic education should be provided to all children, youth and adults. To this end, basic education services of quality should be expanded and consistent measures must be taken to reduce disparities.

2 . For basic education to be equitable, all children, youth and adults must be given the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning.

3 . The most urgent priority is to ensure access to, and improve the quality of, education for girls and women, and to remove every obstacle that hampers their active participation. All gender stereotyping in education should be eliminated.

4 . An active commitment must be made to removing educational disparities. Underserved groups: the poor; street and working children; rural and remote populations; nomads and migrant workers; indigenous peoples; ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities; refugees; those displaced by war; and people under occupation, should not suffer any discrimination in access to learning opportunities.

5 . The learning needs of the disabled demand special attention. Steps need to be taken to provide equal access to education to every category of disabled persons as an integral part of the education system.

ARTICLE 4 • FOCUSSING ON LEARNING

Whether or not expanded educational opportunities will translate into meaningful development – for an individual or for society – depends ultimately on whether people actually learn as a result of those opportunities, i.e., whether they incorporate useful knowledge, reasoning ability, skills, and values. The focus of basic education must, therefore, be on actual learning acquisition and outcome, rather than exclusively upon enrolment, continued participation in organized programmes and completion of certification requirements. Active and participatory approaches are particularly valuable in assuring learning acquisition and allowing learners to reach their fullest potential. It is, therefore, necessary to define acceptable levels of learning acquisition for educational programmes and to improve and apply systems of assessing learning achievement.

ARTICLE 5 • BROADENING THE MEANS AND SCOPE OF BASIC EDUCATION

The diversity, complexity, and changing nature of basic learning needs of children, youth and adults necessitates broadening and constantly redefining the scope of basic education to include the following components:

• Learning begins at birth. This calls for early childhood care and initial education. These can be provided through World Declaration on Education for All 5 arrangements involving families, communities, or institutional programmes, as appropriate.

• The main delivery system for the basic education of children outside the family is primary schooling. Primary education must be universal, ensure that the basic learning needs of all children are satisfied, and take into account the culture, needs, and opportunities of the community. Supplementary alternative programmes can help meet the basic learning needs of children with limited or no access to formal schooling, provided that they share the same standards of learning applied to schools, and are adequately supported.

• The basic learning needs of youth and adults are diverse and should be met through a variety of delivery systems. Literacy programmes are indispensable because literacy is a necessary skill in itself and the foundation of other life skills. Literacy in the mother-tongue strengthens cultural identity and heritage. Other needs can be served by: skills training, apprenticeships, and formal and non-formal education programmes in health, nutrition, nutrition, population, agricultural techniques, the environment, science, technology, family life, including fertility awareness, and other societal issues.

• All available instruments and channels of information, communications, and social action could be used to help convey essential knowledge and inform and educate people on social issues. In addition to the traditional means, libraries, television, radio and other media can be mobilized to realize their potential towards meeting basic education needs of all.

These components should constitute an integrated system – complementary, mutually reinforcing, and of comparable standards, and they should contribute to creating and developing possibilities for lifelong learning.

ARTICLE 6 • ENHANCING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR LEARNING

Learning does not take place in isolation. Societies, therefore, must ensure that all learners receive the nutrition, health care, and general physical and emotional support they need in order to participate actively in and benefit from their education. Knowledge and skills that will enhance the learning environment of children should be integrated into community learning programmes for adults. The education of children and their parents or other caretakers is mutually supportive and this interaction should be used to create, for all, a learning environment of vibrancy and warmth.

ARTICLE 7 • STRENGTHENING PARTNERSHIPS

National, regional, and local educational authorities have a unique obligation to provide basic education for all, but they cannot be expected to supply every human, financial or organizational requirement for this task. New and revitalized partnerships at all levels will be necessary: partnerships among all sub-sectors and forms of education, recognizing the special role of teachers and that of administrators and other educational personnel; partnerships between education and other government departments, including planning, finance, labour, communications, and other social sectors; partnerships between government and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, local communities , religious groups , and families. The recognition of the vital role of both families and teachers is particularly important. In this context, the terms and conditions of service of teachers and their status, which constitute a determining factor in the implementation of education for all, must be urgently improved in all countries in line with the joint ILO/ UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers (1966). Genuine partnerships contribute to the planning, implementing, managing and evaluating of basic education programmes. When we speak of “an expanded vision and a renewed commitment”, partnerships are at the heart of it.

EDUCATION FOR ALL: THE REQUIREMENTS

Article 8 – developing a supportive policy context.

1. Supportive policies in the social, cultural, and economic sectors are required in order to realize the full provision and utitlization of basic education for individual and societal improvement. The provision of basic education for all depends on political commitment and political will backed by appropriate fiscal measures and reinforced by educational policy reforms and institutional strengthening. Suitable economic, trade, labour, employment and health policies will enhance learners’ incentives and contributions to societal development.

2. Societies should also insure a strong intellectual and scientific environment for basic education. This implies improving higher education and developing scientific research. Close contact with contemporary technological and scientific knowledge should be possible at every level of education.

ARTICLE 9 • MOBILIZING RESOURCES

1 . If the basic learning needs of all are to be met through a much broader scope of action than in the past, it will be essential to mobilize existing and new financial and human resources, public, private and voluntary. All of society has a contribution to make, recognizing that time, energy and funding directed to basic education are perhaps the most profound investment in people and in the future of a country which can be made.

2. Enlarged public-sector support means drawing on the resources of all the government agencies responsible for human development, through increased absolute and proportional allocations to basic education services with the clear recognition of competing claims on national resources of which education is an important one, but not the only one. Serious attention to improving the efficiency of existing educational resources and programmes will not only produce more, it can also be expected to attract new resources. The urgent task of meeting basic learning needs may require are allocation between sectors, as, for example, a transfer from military to educational expenditure. Above all, special protection for basic education will be required in countries undergoing structural adjustment and facing severe external debt burdens. Today, more than ever, education must be seen as a fundamental dimension of any social, cultural, and economic design.

ARTICLE 10 • STRENGTHENING INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY

1. Meeting basic learning needs constitutes a common and universal human responsibility. It requires international solidarity and equitable and fair economic relations in order to redress existing economic dis- parities. All nations have valuable knowledge and experiences to share for designing effective educational policies and programmes.

2. Substantial and long-term increases in resources for basic education will be needed. The world community, including intergovernmental agencies and institutions, has an urgent responsibility to alleviate the constraints that prevent some countries from achieving the goal of education for all. It will mean the adoption of measures that augment the national budgets of the poorest countries or serve to relieve heavy debt burdens. Creditors and debtors must seek innovative and equitable formulae to resolve these burdens, since the capacity of many developing countries to respond effectively to education and other basic needs will be greatly helped by finding solutions to the debt problem.

3. Basic learning needs of adults and children must be addressed wherever they exist. Least developed and low-income countries have special needs which require priority in international support for basic education in the 1990s.

4. All nations must also work together to resolve conflicts and strife, to end military occupations, and to settle displaced populations, or to facilitate their return to their countries of origin, and ensure that their basic learning needs are met. Only a stable and peaceful environment can create the conditions in which every human being, child and adult alike, may benefit from the goals of this Declaration.

We, the participants in the World Conference on Education for All, reaffirm the right of all people to education. This is the foundation of our determination, singly and together, to ensure education for all.

We commit ourselves to act cooperatively through our own spheres of responsibility, taking all necessary steps to achieve the goals of education for all. Together we call on governments, concerned organizations and individuals to join in this urgent undertaking.

The basic learning needs of all can and must be met. There can be no more meaningful way to begin the International Literacy Year, to move forward the goals of the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons (1983-92), the World Decade for Cultural Development (1988-97), the Fourth United Nations Development Decade (1991-2000), of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, and of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There has never been a more propitious time to commit ourselves to providing basic learning opportunities for all the people of the world.

We adopt, therefore, this World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs and agree on the Framework for action to Meet Basic Learning Needs, to achieve the goals set forth in this Declaration.

Framework For Action Meeting Basic Learning Needs

Guidelines for implementing the World Declaration on Education for All

Introduction

1. This Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs derives from the World Declaration on Education for All, adopted by the World Conference on Education for All, which brought together representatives of governments, international and bilateral development agencies, and non-governmental organizations. Based on the best collective knowledge and the commitment of these partners, the Framework is intended as a reference and guide for national governments, international organizations, bilateral aid agencies, non-governmental organizations (Egos), and all those committed to the goal of Education for All in formulating their own plans of action for implementing the World Declaration. It describes three broad levels of concerted action: (i) direct action within individual countries, (ii) co-operation among groups of countries sharing certain characteristics and concerns, and (iii) multilateral and bilateral co-operation in the world community.

2. Individual countries and groups of countries, as well as international, regional and national organizations, may use the Framework to develop their own specific plans of action and programmes in line with their particular objectives, mandates and constituencies. This indeed has been the case in the ten-year experience of the UNESCO Major Project on Education for Latin America and the Caribbean. Further examples of such related initiatives are the UNESCO Plan of Action for the Eradication of Illiteracy by the Year 2000, adopted by the UNESCO General Conference at its 25th session (1989); the ISESCO Special Programme (1990); the cur- rent review by the World Bank of its policy for primary education; and USA’s programme for Advancing Basic Education and Literacy. Insofar as such plans of action, policies and programmes are consistent with this Framework, efforts throughout the world to meet basic learning needs will converge and facilitate cooperation.

3. While countries have many common concerns in meeting the basic learning needs of their populations, these concerns do, of course, vary in nature and intensity from country to country depending on the actual status of basic education as well as the cultural and socio-economic context. Globally by the year 2000, if enrolment rates remain at current levels, there will be more than 160 mil- lion children without access to primary schooling simply because of population growth. In much of sub- Saharan Africa and in many low income countries elsewhere, the provision of universal primary education for rapidly growing numbers of children remains a long-term challenge. Despite progress in promoting adult literacy, most of these same countries still have high illiteracy rates, while the numbers of functionally illiterate adults continue to grow and constitute a major social problem in much of Asia and the Arab States, as well as in Europe and North America. Many people are denied equal access on grounds of race, gender, language, disability, ethnic origin, or political convictions. In addition, high drop-out rates and poor learning achievement are commonly recognized problems throughout the world. These very general characterizations illustrate the need for decisive action on a large scale, with clear goals and targets.

GOALS AND TARGETS

4. The ultimate goal affirmed by the World Declaration on Education for All is to meet the basic learning needs of all children, youth, and adults. The long-term effort to attain that goal can be maintained more effectively if intermediate goals are established and progress toward these goals is measured. Appropriate authorities at the national and subnational levels may establish such intermediate goals, taking into account the objectives of the Declaration as well as overall national development goals and priorities.

5. Intermediate goals can usefully be formulated as specific targets within national and subnational plans for educational development. Such targets usually specify expected attainments and outcomes in reference to terminal performance specifications within an appropriate time-frame, specify priority categories (e. g. the poor, the disabled), and are formulated in terms such that progress toward them can be observed and measured. These targets represent a “floor” (but not a “ceiling”) for the continued development of education programmes and services.

6. Time-bound targets convey a sense of urgency and serve as a reference against which indices of implementation and accomplishment can be compared. As societal conditions change, plans and targets can be reviewed and updated. Where basic education efforts must be focussed to meet the needs of specific social groups or population categories, linking targets to such priority categories of learners can help to maintain the attention of planners, practitioners and evaluators on meeting the needs of these learners. Observable and measurable targets assist in the objective evaluation of progress.

7. Targets need not be based solely on current trends and resources. Initial targets can reflect a realistic appraisal of the possibilities presented by the Declaration to mobilize additional human, organizational, and financial capacities within a cooperative commitment to human development. Countries with low literacy and school enrolment rates, and very limited national resources, will need to make hard choices in establishing national targets within a realistic timeframe.

8. Countries may wish to set their own targets for the 1990s in terms of the following proposed dimensions:

(1) Expansion of early childhood care and developmental activities, including family and community interventions, especially for poor, disadvantaged and disabled children;

(2) Universal access to, and completion of, primary education (or whatever higher level of education is considered as “basic”) by the year 2000;

(3) Improvement in learning achievement such that an agreed percentage of an appropriate age cohort (e. g. 80% of 14 year-olds) attains or surpasses a defined level of necessary learning achievement;

(4) Reduction of the adult illiteracy rate (the appropriate age group to be determined in each country) to, say, one-half its 1990 level by the year 2000, with sufficient emphasis on female literacy to significantly reduce the current disparity between male and female illiteracy rates;

(5) Expansion of provisions of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults, with programme effectiveness assessed in terms of behavioural changes and impacts on health, employment and productivity;

(6) Increased acquisition by individuals and families of the know- ledge, skills and values required for better living and sound and sustainable development, made available through all education channels including the mass media, other forms of modern and traditional communication, and social action, with effectiveness assessed in terms of behavioural change.

9. Levels of performance in the above should be established, when possible. These should be consistent with the focus of basic education both on universalization of access and on learning acquisition, as joint and inseparable concerns. In all cases, the performance targets should include equity by gender. However, setting levels of performance and of the proportions of participants who are expected to reach these levels in specific basic education programmes must be an autonomous task of individual countries.

PRINCIPLES OF ACTION

10. The first step consists in identifying, preferably through an active participatory process involving groups and the community, the traditional learning systems which exist in the society, and the actual demand for basic education services, whether expressed in terms of formal schooling or non-formal education programmes. Addressing the basic learning needs of all means: early childhood care and development opportunities; relevant, quality primary schooling or equivalent out-of-school education for children; and literacy, basic knowledge and life skills training for youth and adults. It also means capitalizing on the use of traditional and modern information media and technologies to educate the public on matters of social concern and to support basic education activities. These complementary components of basic education need to be designed to ensure equitable access, sustained participation, and effective learning achievement. Meeting basic learning needs also involves action to enhance the family and community environments for learning and to correlate basic education and the larger socio-economic context. The complementarity and synergistic effects of related human resources investments in population, health and nutrition should be recognized.

11. Because basic learning needs are complex and diverse, meeting them requires multisectoral strategies and action which are integral to overall development efforts. Many partners must join with the education authorities, teachers, and other educational personnel in developing basic education if it is to be seen, once again, as the responsibility of the entire socie- ty. This implies the active involvement of a wide range of partners – families, teachers, communities, private enterprises (including those involved in information and communication), government and non-governmental organizations, institutions, etc. – in planning, managing and evaluating the many forms of basic education.

12. Current practices and institutional arrangements for delivering basic education, and the existing mechanisms for co-operation in this regard, should be carefully evaluated before new institutions or mechanisms are created. Rehabilitating dilapidated schools and improving the training and working conditions of teachers and literacy workers, building on existing learning schemes, are likely to bring greater and more immediate returns on investment than attempts to start afresh.

13. Great potential lies in possible joint actions with non-governmental organizations on all levels. These autonomous bodies, while advocating independent and critical public views, might play roles in monitoring, research, training and material production for the sake of non-formal and lifelong educational processes.

14. The primary purpose of bilateral and multilateral co-operation should appear in a true spirit of partnership – it should not be to transplant familiar models, but to help develop the endogenous capacities of national authorities and their in-country partners to meet basic learning needs effectively. Action and resources should be used to strengthen essential features of basic education services, focussing on managerial and analytical capacities, which can stimulate further developments. International co-operation and funding can be particularly valuable in supporting major reforms or sectoral adjustments, and in helping to develop and test innovative approaches to teaching and management, where new approaches need to be tried and/or extraordinary levels of expenditure are involved and where knowledge of relevant experiences elsewhere can often be useful.

15. International co-operation should give priority to the countries currently least able to meet the basic learning needs of their populations. It should also help countries redress their internal disparities in educational opportunity. Because two-thirds of illiterate adults and out-of-school children are female, wherever such inequities exist, a most urgent priority is to improve access to education for girls and women, and to remove every obstacle that hampers their active participation.

I. PRIORITY ACTION AT NATIONAL LEVEL

16. Progress in meeting the basic learning needs of all will depend ultimately on the actions taken within individual countries. While regional and international co-operation and financial assistance can support and facilitate such actions, government authorities, communities and their several in-country partners are the key agents for improvement, and national governments have the main responsibility for coordinating the effective use of internal and external resources. Given the diversity of countries’ situations, capacities and development plans and goals, this Framework can only suggest certain areas that merit priority attention. Each country will determine for itself what specific actions beyond current efforts may be necessary in each of the following areas.

1.1 ASSESSING NEEDS AND PLANNING ACTION

17. To achieve the targets set for itself, each country is encouraged to develop or update comprehensive and long-term plans of action (from local to national levels) to meet the learning needs it has defined as “basic”. Within the context of existing education-sector and general development plans and strategies, a plan of action for basic education for all will necessarily be multisectoral, to guide activities in the sectors involved (e. g. education, information, communications/ media, labour, agriculture, health). Models of strategic planning, by definition, vary. However, most of them involve constant adjustments among objectives, resources, actions, and constraints. At the national level, objectives are normally couched in broad terms and central government resources are also determined, while actions are taken at the local level. Thus, local plans in the same national setting will naturally differ not only in scope but in content. National and subnational frameworks and local plans should allow for varying conditions and circumstances. These might, therefore, specify:

• studies for the evaluation of existing systems (analysis of problems, failures and successes):

• the basic learning needs to be met, including cognitive skills, values, attitudes, as well as subject knowledge;

• the languages to be used in education

• means to promote the demand for, and broadscale participation in, basic education;

• modalities to mobilize family and local community support;

• targets and specific objectives;

• the required capital and recurrent resources, duly costed, as well as possible measures for cost effectiveness;

• indicators and procedures to be used to monitor progress in reaching the targets;

• priorities for using resources and for developing services and programmes over time;

• the priority groups that require special measures;

• the kinds of expertise required to implement the plan;

• institutional and administrative arrangements needed;

• modalities for ensuring information sharing among formal and other basic education programmes; and

• an implementation strategy and timetable.

1. 2 DEVELOPING A SUPPORTIVE POLICY ENVIRONMENT

18. A multisectoral plan of action implies adjustments to sectoral policies so that sectors interact in a mutually supportive and beneficial manner in line with the country’s overall development goals. Action to meet basic learning needs should be an integral part of a country’s national and sub- national development strategies, which should reflect the priority given to human development. Legislative and other measures may be needed to promote and facilitate co-operation among the various partners involved. Advocacy and public information about basic education are important in creating a supportive policy environment at national, subnational and local levels.

19. Four specific steps that merit attention are: (i)initiation of national and subnational level activities to create a broad, public recommitment to the goal of education for all; (ii)reduction of inefficiency in the public sector and exploitative practices in the private sector; (iii)provision of improved training for public administrators and of incentives to retain qualified women and men in public service; and (iv) provision of measures to encourage wider participation in the design and implementation of basic education programmes.

1. 3 DESIGNING POLICIES TO IMPROVE BASIC EDUCATION

20. The preconditions for educational quality, equity and efficiency, are set in the early childhood years, making attention to early childhood care and development essential to the achievement of basic education goals. Basic education must correspond to actual needs, interests, and problems of the participants in the learning process. The relevance of curricula could be enhanced by linking literacy and numeracy skills and scientific concepts with learners’ concerns and earlier experiences, for example, nutrition, health, and work. While many needs vary considerably within and among countries, and therefore much of a curriculum should be sensitive to local conditions, there are also many universal needs and shared concerns which should be addressed in education curricula and in educational messages. Issues such as protecting the environment, achieving a balance between population and resources, slowing the spread of AIDS, and preventing drug abuse are everyone’s issues.

21. Specific strategies addressed to improve the conditions of schooling may focus on: learners and the learning process, personnel (teachers, administrators, others), curriculum and learning assessment, materials and physical facilities. Such strategies should be conducted in an integrated man- ner; their design, management, and evaluation should take into account the acquisition of knowledge and problem-solving skills as well as the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of human development. Depending on the outcomes desired, teachers have to be trained accordingly, whilst benefiting from in-service programmes as well as other incentives of opportunity which put a premium on the achievement of these outcomes; curriculum and assessment must reflect a variety of criteria while materials – and conceivably buildings and facilities as well – must be adapted along the same lines. In some countries, the strategy may include ways to improve conditions for teaching and learning such that absenteeism is reduced and learning time increased. In order to meet the educational needs of groups not covered by formal schooling, appropriate strategies are needed for non-formal education. These include but go far beyond the aspects described above, but may also give special attention to the need for coordination with other forms of education, to the support of all interested partners, to sustained financial resources and to full community participation. An example for such an approach applied to literacy can be found in UNESCO’s Plan of Action for the Eradication of Illiteracy by the Year 2000. Other strategies still may rely on the media to meet the broader education needs of the entire community. Such strategies need to be linked to formal education, non-formal education or a combination of both. The use of the communications media holds a tremendous potential to educate the public and to share important information among those who need to know.

22. Expanding access to basic education of satisfactory quality is an effective way to improve equity. Ensuring that girls and women stay involved in basic education activities until they have attained at least the agreed necessary level of learning, can be encouraged through special measures designed, wherever possible, in consultation with them. Similar approaches are necessary to expand learning opportunities for various disadvantaged groups.

23. Efficiency in basic education does not mean providing education at the lowest cost, but rather the most effective use of all resources (human, organizational, and financial) to produce the desired levels of access and of necessary learning achievement. The foregoing considerations of relevance, quality, and equity are not alternatives to efficiency but represent the specific conditions within which efficiency should be attained. For some programmes, efficiency will require more, not fewer, resources. However, if existing resources can be used by more learners or if the same learning targets can be reached at a lower cost per learner, then the capacity of basic education to meet the targets of access and achievement for presently underserved groups can be increased.

1. 4 IMPROVING MANAGERIAL, ANALYTICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CAPACITIES

24. Many kinds of expertise and skills will be needed to carry out these initiatives. Managerial and supervisory personnel, as well as planners, school architects, teacher educators, curriculum developers, researchers, analysts, etc., are important for any strategy to improve basic education, but many countries do not provide specialized training to prepare them for their responsibilities; this is especially true in literacy and other out-of-school basic education activities. A broadening of outlook toward basic education will be a crucial prerequisite to the effective co-ordination of efforts among these many participants, and strengthening and developing capacities for planning and management at regional and local levels with a greater sharing of responsibilities will be necessary in many countries. Pre- and in-service training programmes for key personnel should be initiated, or strengthened where they do exist. Such training can be particularly useful in introducing administrative reforms and innovative management and supervisory techniques.

25. The technical services and mechanisms to collect, process and ana- lyze data pertaining to basic education can be improved in all countries. This is an urgent task in many countries that have little reliable information and/or research on the basic learning needs of their people and on existing basic education activities. A country’s information and knowledge base is vital in preparing and implementing a plan of action. One major implication of the focus on learning acquisition is that systems have to be developed and improved to assess the performance of individual learners and delivery mechanisms. Process and outcome assessment data should serve as the core of a management information system for basic education.

26. The quality and delivery of basic education can be enhanced through the judicious use of instructional technologies. Where such technologies are not now widely used, their introduction will require the selection and/or development of suitable technologies, acquisition of the necessary equipment and operating systems, and the recruitment or training of teachers and other educational personnel to work with them. The definition of a suitable technology varies by societal characteristics and will change rapidly over time as new technologies (educational radio and television, computers, and various audio-visual instructional devices) become less expensive and more adaptable to a range of environments. The use of modern technology can also improve the management of basic education. Each country may reexamine periodically its present and potential technological capacity in relation to its basic educational needs and resources.

1. 5 MOBILIZING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

27. New possibilities are emerging which already show a powerful impact on meeting basic learning needs, and it is clear that the educational potential of these new possibilities has barely been tapped. These new possibilities exist largely as a result of two converging forces, both recent by-products of the general development process. First, the quantity of information available in the world – much of it relevant to survival and basic well-being – is exponentially greater than that available only a few years ago, and the rate of its growth is accelerating. A synergistic effect occurs when important information is coupled with a second modern advance – the new capacity to communicate among the people of the world. The opportunity exists to harness this force and use it positively, consciously, and with design, in order to contribute to meeting defined learning needs.

1. 6 BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS AND MOBILIZING RESOURCES

28. In designing the plan of action and creating a supportive policy environment for promoting basic education, maximum use of opportunities should be considered to expand existing collaborations and to bring together new partners: e. g. , family and community organizations, non-governmental and other voluntary associations, teachers’ unions, other professional groups, employers, the media, political parties, cooperatives, universities, research institutions, religious bodies, as well as education authorities and other government departments and services (labour, agriculture, health, information, commerce, industry, defence, etc.). The human and organizational resources these domestic partners represent need to be effectively mobilized to play their parts in implementing the plan of action. Partnerships at the community level and at the intermediate and national levels should be encouraged; they can help harmonize activities, utilize resources more effectively, and mobilize additional financial and human resources where necessary.

29. Governments and their partners can analyze the current allocation and use of financial and other resources for education and training in different sectors to determine if additional support for basic education can be obtained by (i) improving efficiency, (ii) mobilizing additional sources of funding within and outside the government budget, and (iii) allocating funds within existing education and training budgets, taking into account efficiency and equity concerns. Countries where the total fiscal support for education is low need to explore the possibility of reallocating some public funds used for other purposes to basic education.

30. Assessing the resources actually or potentially available for basic education and comparing them to the budget estimates underlying the plan of action, can help identify possible inadequacies of resources that may affect the scheduling of planned activities over time or may require choices to be made. Countries that require external assistance to meet the basic learning needs of their people can use the resource assessment and plan of action as a basis for discussions with their international partners and for coordinating external funding.

31. The individual learners themselves constitute a vital human resource that needs to be mobilized. The demand for, and participation in, learning opportunities cannot simply be assumed, but must be actively encouraged. Potential learners need to see that the benefits of basic education activities exceed the costs the participants must bear, such as earnings foregone and reduced time available for community and household activities and for leisure. Women and girls especially may be deterred from taking full advantage of basic education opportunities because of reasons specific to individual cultures. Such barriers to participation may be over- come through the use of incentives and by programmes adapted to the local context and seen by the learners, their families and communities to be “productive activities”. Also, learners tend to benefit more from education when they are partners in the instructional process, rather than treated simply as “inputs” or “beneficiaries”. Attention to the issues of demand and participation will help assure that the learners’ personal capacities are mobilized for education.

32. Family resources, including time and mutual support, are vital for the success of basic education activities. Families can be offered incentives and assistance to ensure that their resources are invested to enable all family members to benefit as fully and equitably as possible from basic education opportunities.

33. The preeminent role of teachers as well as of other educational personnel in providing quality basic education needs to be recognized and developed to optimize their contribution. This must entail measures to respect teachers’ trade union rights and professional freedoms, and to impro- ve their working conditions and status, notably in respect to their recruitment, initial and in-service training, remuneration and career development possibilities, as well as to allow teachers to fulfill their aspirations, social obligations, and ethical responsibilities.

34. In partnerships with school and community workers, libraries need to become a vital link in providing educational resources for all learners – pre-school through adulthood – in school and non-school settings. There is therefore a need to recognize libraries as invaluable information resources.

35. Community associations, co-operatives, religious bodies, and other non-governmental organizations also play important roles in supporting and in providing basic education. Their experience, expertise, energy and direct relationships with various constituencies are valuable resources for identifying and meeting basic learning needs. Their active involvement in partnerships for basic education should be promoted through policies and mechanisms that strengthen their capacities and recognize their autonomy.

2. PRIORITY ACTION AT REGIONAL LEVEL

36. Basic learning needs must be met through collaborative action within each country, but there are many forms of co-operation bet- ween countries with similar conditions and concerns that could, and do, assist in this endeavour. Regions have already developed plans, such as the Jakarta Plan of Action on Human Resources, adopted by ESCAP in 1988. By exchanging information and experience, pooling expertise, sharing facilities, and undertaking joint activities, several countries, working together, can increase their resource base and lower costs to their mutual benefit. Such arrangements are often set up among neighboring countries (sub-regional), among all countries in a major geo-cultural region, or among countries sharing a com- mon language or having cultural and commercial relations. Regional and international organizations often play an important role in facilitating such cooperation between countries. In the following discussion, all such arrangements are included in the term “regional”. In general, existing regional partnerships will need to be strengthened and provided with the resources necessary for their effective functioning in helping countries meet the basic learning needs of their populations.

2. 1 EXCHANGING INFORMATION, EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE

37. Various regional mechanisms, both intergovernmental and nongovernmental, promote co-operation in education and training, health, agricultural development, research and information, communications, and in other fields relevant to meeting basic learning needs. Such mechanisms can be further developed in response to the evolving needs of their constituents. Among several possible examples are the four regional programmes established through UNESCO in the 1980s to support national efforts to achieve universal primary education and eliminate adult illiteracy:

• Major Project in the Field of Education in Latin America and the Caribbean;

• Regional Programme for the Eradication of Illiteracy in Africa;

• Asia-Pacific Programme of Education for All (APPEAL);

• Regional Programme for the Universalization and Renewal of Primary Education and the Eradication of Illiteracy in the Arab States by the Year 2000 (ARABUPEAL).

38. In addition to the technical and policy consultations organized in connection with these programmes, other existing mechanisms can be used for consulting on policy issues in basic education. The conferences of ministers of education organized by UNESCO and by several regional organizations, the regular sessions of the regional commissions of the United Nations, and certain trans-regional conferences organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat, CONFEMEN (standing conference of ministers of education of francophone countries), the Organization of Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD), and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), could be used for this purpose as needs arise. In addition, numerous conferences and meetings organized by non-governmental bodies provide opportunities for professionals to share information and views on technical and policy issues. The conveners of these various conferences and meetings may consider ways of extending participation, where appropriate, to include representatives of other constituencies engaged in meeting basic learning needs.

39. Full advantage should be taken of opportunities to share media messages or programmes that can be exchanged among countries or collaboratively developed, especially where language and cultural similarities extend beyond political boundaries.

2.2 UNDERTAKING JOINT ACTIVITIES

40. There are many possible joint activities among countries in support of national efforts to implement action plans for basic education. Joint activities should be designed to exploit economies of scale and the comparative advantages of participating countries. Six areas where this form of regional collaboration seems particularly appropriate are: ( i) training of key personnel, such as planners, managers, teacher educators, researchers, etc. ; ( ii) efforts to improve information collection and analysis; (iii) research; ( iv) production of educational materials; ( v) use of communication media to meet basic learning needs; and (vi) management and use of distance education services. Here, too, there are several existing mechanisms that could be utilized to foster such activities, including UNESCO’ s International Institute of Educational Planning and its networks of trainees and research as well as IBE’s information network and the Unesco Institute for Education, the five networks for educational innovation operating under UNESCO’s auspices, the research and review advisory groups (RRAGs) associated with the International Development Research Centre , the Commonwealth of Learning, the Asian Cultural Center for UNESCO, the participatory network established by the International Council for Adult Education, and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, which links major national research institutions in some 35 countries. Certain multilateral and bilateral development agencies that have accumulated valuable experience in one or more of these areas might be interested in participating in joint activities. The five United Nations regional commissions could provide further support to such regional collaboration, especially by mobilizing policymakers to take appropriate action.

3. PRIORITY ACTION AT WORLD LEVEL

21. The world community has a well- established record of co- operation in education and development. However, international funding f or education stagnated during the early 1980 s; at the same time, many countries have been handicapped by growing debt burdens and economic relationships that channel their financial and human resources to wealthier countries. Because concern about the issues in basic education is shared by industrialized and developing countries alike, international cooperation can provide valuable support for national efforts and regional actions to implement the expanded vision of basic Education for All. Time, energy, and funding directed to basic education are perhaps the most profound investment in people and in the future of a country which can be made; there is a clear need and strong moral and economic argument for international solidarity to provide technical co-operation and financial assistance to countries that lack the resources to meet the basic learning needs of their populations .

3.1 COOPERATION WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

42. Meeting basic learning needs constitutes a common and universal human responsibility. The prospects for meeting basic learning needs around the world are determined in part by the dynamics of international relations and trade. With the current relaxation of tensions and the decreasing number of armed conflicts, there are now real possibilities to reduce the tremendous waste of military spending and shift those resources into socially useful areas, including basic education. The urgent task of meeting basic learning needs may require such a reallocation between sectors, and the world community and individual governments need to plan this conversion of resources for peaceful uses with courage and vision, and in a thoughtful and careful manner. Similarly, international measures to reduce or eliminate current imbalances in trade relations and to reduce debt burdens must be taken to enable many low-income countries to rebuild their own economies, releasing and retaining human and financial resources needed for development and for providing basic education to their populations. Structural adjustment policies should protect appropriate funding levels for education.

3.2 ENHANCING NATIONAL CAPACITIES

43. International support should be provided, on request, to countries seeking to develop the national capacities needed for planning and managing basic education programmes and services (see section I.4). Ultimate responsibility rests within each nation to design and manage its own programmes to meet the learning needs of all its population. International support could include training and institutional development in data collection, analysis and research, technological innovation, and educational methodologies. Management information systems and other modern management methods could also be introduced, with an emphasis on low and middle level managers. These capabilities will be even more in demand to support quality improvements in primary education and to introduce innovative out-of- school programmes. In addition to direct support to countries and institutions, international assistance can also be usefully channelled to support the activities of international, regional and other inter-country structures that organize joint research, training and information exchanges. The latter should be based on, and supported by, existing institutions and programmes, if need be improved and strengthened, rather than on the establishment of new structures. Support will be especially valuable for technical cooperation among developing countries, among which both circumstances and resources available to respond to circumstances are often similar.

44. Meeting the basic learning needs of all people in all countries is obviously a long-term undertaking. This Framework provides guidelines for preparing national and subnational plans of action for the development of basic education through a long-term commitment of governments and their national partners to work together to reach the targets and achieve the objectives they set for themselves. International agencies and institutions, many of which are sponsors, co-sponsors, and associate sponsors of the World Conference on Education for All, should actively seek to plan together and sustain their long-term support for the kinds of national and regional actions outlined in the preceding sections. In particular, the core sponsors of the Education for All initiative (UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank) affirm their commitments to supporting the priority areas for international action presented below and to making appropriate arrangements for meeting the objectives of Education for All, each acting within its man- date, special responsibilities, and decisions of its governing bodies. Given that UNESCO is the UN agency with a particular responsibility for education, it will give priority to implementing the Framework for Action and to facilitating provision of services needed for reinforced international co-ordination and co-operation.

45. Increased international funding is needed to help the less developed countries implement their own autonomous plans of action in line with the expanded vision of basic Education for All. Genuine partnerships characterized by co-operation and joint long-term commitments will accomplish more and provide the basis for a substantial increase in overall fun- ding for this important sub-sector of education. Upon governments’ request, multilateral and bilateral agencies should focus on supporting priority actions, particularly at the country level (see section I), in areas such as the following:

a. The design or updating of national and subnational multisectoral plans of action (see section I. 1), which will need to be elaborated very early in the 1990s. Both financial and technical assistance are needed by many developing countries, particularly in collecting and analyzing data, as well as in organizing domestic consultations.

b. National efforts and related inter-country co-operation to attain a satisfactory level of quality and relevance in primary education (cf. sections I.3 and II above). Experiences involving the participation of families, local communities, and non-governmental organizations in increasing the relevance and improving the quality of education could profitably be shared among countries.

c. The provision of universal primary education in the economically poorer countries. International funding agencies should consider negotiating arrangements to provide long- term support, on a case-by-case basis, to help countries move toward universal primary education according to their timetable. The external agencies should examine current assistance practices in order to find ways of effectively assisting basic education programs which do not require capital- and technology-intensive assistance, but often need longer-term budgetary support. In this context, greater attention should be given to criteria for development co-operation in education to include more than mere economic considerations.

d. Programmes designed to meet the basic learning needs of disadvantaged groups, out-of-school youth, and adults with little or no access to basic learning opportunities. All partners can share their experience and expertise in designing and implementing innovative measures and activities, and focus their fun- ding for basic education on specific categories and groups (e.g., women, the rural poor, the disabled) to improve significantly the learning opportunities and conditions available for them.

e. Education programmes for women and girls. These programmes should be designed to eliminate the social and cultural barriers which have discouraged or even excluded women and girls from benefits of regular education programmes, as well as to promote equal opportunities in all aspects of their lives.

f. Education programmes for refugees. The programmes run by such organizations as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) need more substantial and reliable long-term financial support for this recognized international responsibility. Where countries of refuge need international financial and technical assistance to cope with the basic needs of refugees, including their learning needs, the international community can help to share this burden through increased cooperation. The world community will also endeavour to ensure that people under occupation or displaced by war and other calamities continue to have access to basic education programmes that preserve their cultural identity.

g. Basic education programmes of all kinds in countries with high rates of illiteracy (as in sub-Saharan Africa) and with large illiterate populations (as in South Asia). Substantial assistance will be needed to reduce significantly the world’s large number of illiterate adults.

h. Capacity building for research and planning and the experimentation of small-scale innovations. The success of Education for All actions will ultimately be determined by the capacity of each country to design and implement programs that reflect national conditions. A strengthened knowledge base nourished by research findings and the lessons of experiments and innovations as well as the availability of competent educational planners will be essential in this respect.

46. The coordination of external funding for education is an area of shared responsibility at country level, in which host governments need to take the lead to ensure the efficient use of resources in accordance with their priorities. Development funding agencies should explore innovative and more flexible modalities of co-operation in consultation with the governments and institutions with which they work and co-operate in regional initiatives, such as the Task Force of Donors to African Education. Other forums need to be developed in which fun- ding agencies and developing countries can collaborate in the design of inter-country projects and discuss general issues relating to financial assistance.

3.4 CONSULTATIONS ON POLICY ISSUES

47. Existing channels of communication and forums for consultation among the many partners involved in meeting basic learning needs should be fully utilized in the 1990s to maintain and extend the inter- national consensus underlying this Framework for Action. Some channels and forums, such as the biannual International Conference on Education, operate globally, while others focus on particular regions or groups of countries or categories of partners. Insofar as possible, organizers should seek to coordinate these consultations and share results.

48. Moreover, in order to maintain and expand the Education for All initiative, the international community will need to make appropriate arrangements, which will ensure co-operation among the interested agencies using the existing mechanisms insofar as possible: (i) to continue advocacy of basic Education for All, building on the momentum generated by the World Conference; (ii) to facilitate sharing information on the progress made in achieving basic education targets set by countries for themselves and on the resources and organizational requirements for successful initiatives; (iii) to encourage new partners to join this global endeavor; and(iv) to ensure that all partners are fully aware of the importance of maintaining strong support for basic education.

INDICATIVE PHASING OF IMPLEMENTATION FOR THE 1990S

49. Each country, in determining its own intermediate goals and targets and in designing its plan of action for achieving them, will, in the process, establish a timetable to harmonize and schedule specific activities. Similarly, regional and international action will need to be scheduled to help countries meet their tar- gets on time. The following general schedule suggests an indicative phasing during the 1990s; of course, certain phases may need to overlap and the dates indicated will need to be adapted to individual country and organizational contexts.

1. Governments and organizations set specific targets and complete or update their plans of action to meet basic learning needs (cf. section I.1); take measures to create a supportive policy environment (I.2); devise policies to improve the relevance, quality, equity and efficiency of basic education ser- vices and programmes (I.3); design the means to adapt information and communication media to meet basic learning needs (I.5) and mobilize resources and establish operational partner- ships (I.6). International partners assist countries, through direct support and through regional co-operation, to complete this preparatory stage. (1990-1991)

2. Development agencies establish policies and plans for the 1990s, in line with their commitments to sustained, long-term support for national and regional actions and increase their financial and technical assistance to basic education accordingly (III.3). All partners strengthen and use relevant existing mechanisms for consultation and co-operation and establish procedures for monitoring progress at regional and international levels. (1990-1993)

3. First stage of implementation of plans of action: national coordinating bodies monitor implementation and propose appropriate adjustments to plans. Regional and international sup- porting actions are carried out. (1990-1995)

4. Governments and organizations undertake mid-term evaluation of the implementation of their respective plans and adjust them as needed. Governments, organizations and development agencies undertake comprehensive policy reviews at regional and global levels. (1995-1996)

5. Second stage of implementation of plans of action and of sup- porting action at regional and international levels. Development agencies adjust their plans as necessary and increase their assistance to basic education accordingly. (1996-2000)

6. Governments, organizations and development agencies evaluate achievements and undertake comprehensive policy review at regional and global levels. (2000-2001)

50. There will never be a better time to renew commitment to the inevitable and long-term effort to meet the basic learning needs of all children, youth and adults. This effort will require a much greater and wiser investment of resources in basic education and training than ever before, but benefits will begin accruing immediately and will extend well into the future – where the global challenges of today will be met, in good measure, by the world community’s commitment and perseverance in attaining its goal of education for all.

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The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world, working in 90 countries and committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Education is a human right, a powerful driver of development, and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and improving health, gender equality, peace, and stability. It delivers large, consistent returns in terms of income, and is the most important factor to ensure equity and inclusion.

For individuals, education promotes employment, earnings, health, and poverty reduction. Globally, there is a  9% increase in hourly earnings for every extra year of schooling . For societies, it drives long-term economic growth, spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion.  Education is further a powerful catalyst to climate action through widespread behavior change and skilling for green transitions.

Developing countries have made tremendous progress in getting children into the classroom and more children worldwide are now in school. But learning is not guaranteed, as the  2018 World Development Report  (WDR) stressed.

Making smart and effective investments in people’s education is critical for developing the human capital that will end extreme poverty. At the core of this strategy is the need to tackle the learning crisis, put an end to  Learning Poverty , and help youth acquire the advanced cognitive, socioemotional, technical and digital skills they need to succeed in today’s world. 

In low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in  Learning Poverty  (that is, the proportion of 10-year-old children that are unable to read and understand a short age-appropriate text) increased from 57% before the pandemic to an estimated  70%  in 2022.

However, learning is in crisis. More than 70 million more people were pushed into poverty during the COVID pandemic, a billion children lost a year of school , and three years later the learning losses suffered have not been recouped .  If a child cannot read with comprehension by age 10, they are unlikely to become fluent readers. They will fail to thrive later in school and will be unable to power their careers and economies once they leave school.

The effects of the pandemic are expected to be long-lasting. Analysis has already revealed deep losses, with international reading scores declining from 2016 to 2021 by more than a year of schooling.  These losses may translate to a 0.68 percentage point in global GDP growth.  The staggering effects of school closures reach beyond learning. This generation of children could lose a combined total of  US$21 trillion in lifetime earnings  in present value or the equivalent of 17% of today’s global GDP – a sharp rise from the 2021 estimate of a US$17 trillion loss. 

Action is urgently needed now – business as usual will not suffice to heal the scars of the pandemic and will not accelerate progress enough to meet the ambitions of SDG 4. We are urging governments to implement ambitious and aggressive Learning Acceleration Programs to get children back to school, recover lost learning, and advance progress by building better, more equitable and resilient education systems.

Last Updated: Mar 25, 2024

The World Bank’s global education strategy is centered on ensuring learning happens – for everyone, everywhere. Our vision is to ensure that everyone can achieve her or his full potential with access to a quality education and lifelong learning. To reach this, we are helping countries build foundational skills like literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills – the building blocks for all other learning. From early childhood to tertiary education and beyond – we help children and youth acquire the skills they need to thrive in school, the labor market and throughout their lives.

Investing in the world’s most precious resource – people – is paramount to ending poverty on a livable planet.  Our experience across more than 100 countries bears out this robust connection between human capital, quality of life, and economic growth: when countries strategically invest in people and the systems designed to protect and build human capital at scale, they unlock the wealth of nations and the potential of everyone.

Building on this, the World Bank supports resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. We do this by generating and disseminating evidence, ensuring alignment with policymaking processes, and bridging the gap between research and practice.

The World Bank is the largest source of external financing for education in developing countries, with a portfolio of about $26 billion in 94 countries including IBRD, IDA and Recipient-Executed Trust Funds. IDA operations comprise 62% of the education portfolio.

The investment in FCV settings has increased dramatically and now accounts for 26% of our portfolio.

World Bank projects reach at least 425 million students -one-third of students in low- and middle-income countries.

The World Bank’s Approach to Education

Five interrelated pillars of a well-functioning education system underpin the World Bank’s education policy approach:

• Learners are prepared and motivated to learn;
• Teachers are prepared, skilled, and motivated to facilitate learning and skills acquisition;
• Learning resources (including education technology) are available, relevant, and used to improve teaching and learning;
• Schools are safe and inclusive; and
• Education Systems are well-managed, with good implementation capacity and adequate financing.

The Bank is already helping governments design and implement cost-effective programs and tools to build these pillars.

Our Principles:

• We pursue systemic reform supported by political commitment to learning for all children. 
• We focus on equity and inclusion through a progressive path toward achieving universal access to quality education, including children and young adults in fragile or conflict affected areas , those in marginalized and rural communities,  girls and women , displaced populations,  students with disabilities , and other vulnerable groups.
• We focus on results and use evidence to keep improving policy by using metrics to guide improvements.   
• We want to ensure financial commitment commensurate with what is needed to provide basic services to all. 
• We invest wisely in technology so that education systems embrace and learn to harness technology to support their learning objectives.   

Laying the groundwork for the future

Country challenges vary, but there is a menu of options to build forward better, more resilient, and equitable education systems.

Countries are facing an education crisis that requires a two-pronged approach: first, supporting actions to recover lost time through remedial and accelerated learning; and, second, building on these investments for a more equitable, resilient, and effective system.

Recovering from the learning crisis must be a political priority, backed with adequate financing and the resolve to implement needed reforms.  Domestic financing for education over the last two years has not kept pace with the need to recover and accelerate learning. Across low- and lower-middle-income countries, the  average share of education in government budgets fell during the pandemic , and in 2022 it remained below 2019 levels.

The best chance for a better future is to invest in education and make sure each dollar is put toward improving learning.  In a time of fiscal pressure, protecting spending that yields long-run gains – like spending on education – will maximize impact.  We still need more and better funding for education.  Closing the learning gap will require increasing the level, efficiency, and equity of education spending—spending smarter is an imperative.

• Education technology  can be a powerful tool to implement these actions by supporting teachers, children, principals, and parents; expanding accessible digital learning platforms, including radio/ TV / Online learning resources; and using data to identify and help at-risk children, personalize learning, and improve service delivery.

Looking ahead

We must seize this opportunity  to reimagine education in bold ways. Together, we can build forward better more equitable, effective, and resilient education systems for the world’s children and youth.

Accelerating Improvements

Supporting countries in establishing time-bound learning targets and a focused education investment plan, outlining actions and investments geared to achieve these goals.

Launched in 2020, the  Accelerator Program  works with a set of countries to channel investments in education and to learn from each other. The program coordinates efforts across partners to ensure that the countries in the program show improvements in foundational skills at scale over the next three to five years. These investment plans build on the collective work of multiple partners, and leverage the latest evidence on what works, and how best to plan for implementation.  Countries such as Brazil (the state of Ceará) and Kenya have achieved dramatic reductions in learning poverty over the past decade at scale, providing useful lessons, even as they seek to build on their successes and address remaining and new challenges.  

Universalizing Foundational Literacy

Readying children for the future by supporting acquisition of foundational skills – which are the gateway to other skills and subjects.

The  Literacy Policy Package (LPP)   consists of interventions focused specifically on promoting acquisition of reading proficiency in primary school. These include assuring political and technical commitment to making all children literate; ensuring effective literacy instruction by supporting teachers; providing quality, age-appropriate books; teaching children first in the language they speak and understand best; and fostering children’s oral language abilities and love of books and reading.

Advancing skills through TVET and Tertiary

Ensuring that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities and supporting links to employment.

Tertiary education and skills systems are a driver of major development agendas, including human capital, climate change, youth and women’s empowerment, and jobs and economic transformation. A comprehensive skill set to succeed in the 21st century labor market consists of foundational and higher order skills, socio-emotional skills, specialized skills, and digital skills. Yet most countries continue to struggle in delivering on the promise of skills development. 

The World Bank is supporting countries through efforts that address key challenges including improving access and completion, adaptability, quality, relevance, and efficiency of skills development programs. Our approach is via multiple channels including projects, global goods, as well as the Tertiary Education and Skills Program . Our recent reports including Building Better Formal TVET Systems and STEERing Tertiary Education provide a way forward for how to improve these critical systems.

Addressing Climate Change

Mainstreaming climate education and investing in green skills, research and innovation, and green infrastructure to spur climate action and foster better preparedness and resilience to climate shocks.

Our approach recognizes that education is critical for achieving effective, sustained climate action. At the same time, climate change is adversely impacting education outcomes. Investments in education can play a huge role in building climate resilience and advancing climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change education gives young people greater awareness of climate risks and more access to tools and solutions for addressing these risks and managing related shocks. Technical and vocational education and training can also accelerate a green economic transformation by fostering green skills and innovation. Greening education infrastructure can help mitigate the impact of heat, pollution, and extreme weather on learning, while helping address climate change. 

Examples of this work are projects in Nigeria (life skills training for adolescent girls), Vietnam (fostering relevant scientific research) , and Bangladesh (constructing and retrofitting schools to serve as cyclone shelters).

Strengthening Measurement Systems

Enabling countries to gather and evaluate information on learning and its drivers more efficiently and effectively.

The World Bank supports initiatives to help countries effectively build and strengthen their measurement systems to facilitate evidence-based decision-making. Examples of this work include:

(1) The  Global Education Policy Dashboard (GEPD) : This tool offers a strong basis for identifying priorities for investment and policy reforms that are suited to each country context by focusing on the three dimensions of practices, policies, and politics.

• Highlights gaps between what the evidence suggests is effective in promoting learning and what is happening in practice in each system; and
• Allows governments to track progress as they act to close the gaps.

The GEPD has been implemented in 13 education systems already – Peru, Rwanda, Jordan, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sierra Leone, Niger, Gabon, Jordan and Chad – with more expected by the end of 2024.

(2)  Learning Assessment Platform (LeAP) : LeAP is a one-stop shop for knowledge, capacity-building tools, support for policy dialogue, and technical staff expertise to support student achievement measurement and national assessments for better learning.

Supporting Successful Teachers

Helping systems develop the right selection, incentives, and support to the professional development of teachers.

Currently, the World Bank Education Global Practice has over 160 active projects supporting over 18 million teachers worldwide, about a third of the teacher population in low- and middle-income countries. In 12 countries alone, these projects cover 16 million teachers, including all primary school teachers in Ethiopia and Turkey, and over 80% in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

A World Bank-developed classroom observation tool, Teach, was designed to capture the quality of teaching in low- and middle-income countries. It is now 3.6 million students.

While Teach helps identify patterns in teacher performance, Coach leverages these insights to support teachers to improve their teaching practice through hands-on in-service teacher professional development (TPD).

Our recent report on Making Teacher Policy Work proposes a practical framework to uncover the black box of effective teacher policy and discusses the factors that enable their scalability and sustainability.

 Supporting Education Finance Systems

Strengthening country financing systems to mobilize resources for education and make better use of their investments in education.

Our approach is to bring together multi-sectoral expertise to engage with ministries of education and finance and other stakeholders to develop and implement effective and efficient public financial management systems; build capacity to monitor and evaluate education spending, identify financing bottlenecks, and develop interventions to strengthen financing systems; build the evidence base on global spending patterns and the magnitude and causes of spending inefficiencies; and develop diagnostic tools as public goods to support country efforts.

Working in Fragile, Conflict, and Violent (FCV) Contexts

The massive and growing global challenge of having so many children living in conflict and violent situations requires a response at the same scale and scope. Our education engagement in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) context, which stands at US$5.35 billion, has grown rapidly in recent years, reflecting the ever-increasing importance of the FCV agenda in education. Indeed, these projects now account for more than 25% of the World Bank education portfolio.

Education is crucial to minimizing the effects of fragility and displacement on the welfare of youth and children in the short-term and preventing the emergence of violent conflict in the long-term. 

Support to Countries Throughout the Education Cycle

Our support to countries covers the entire learning cycle, to help shape resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. 

The ongoing  Supporting  Egypt  Education Reform project , 2018-2025, supports transformational reforms of the Egyptian education system, by improving teaching and learning conditions in public schools. The World Bank has invested $500 million in the project focused on increasing access to quality kindergarten, enhancing the capacity of teachers and education leaders, developing a reliable student assessment system, and introducing the use of modern technology for teaching and learning. Specifically, the share of Egyptian 10-year-old students, who could read and comprehend at the global minimum proficiency level, increased to 45 percent in 2021.

In  Nigeria , the $75 million  Edo  Basic Education Sector and Skills Transformation (EdoBESST)  project, running from 2020-2024, is focused on improving teaching and learning in basic education. Under the project, which covers 97 percent of schools in the state, there is a strong focus on incorporating digital technologies for teachers. They were equipped with handheld tablets with structured lesson plans for their classes. Their coaches use classroom observation tools to provide individualized feedback. Teacher absence has reduced drastically because of the initiative. Over 16,000 teachers were trained through the project, and the introduction of technology has also benefited students.

Through the $235 million  School Sector Development Program  in  Nepal  (2017-2022), the number of children staying in school until Grade 12 nearly tripled, and the number of out-of-school children fell by almost seven percent. During the pandemic, innovative approaches were needed to continue education. Mobile phone penetration is high in the country. More than four in five households in Nepal have mobile phones. The project supported an educational service that made it possible for children with phones to connect to local radio that broadcast learning programs.

From 2017-2023, the $50 million  Strengthening of State Universities  in  Chile  project has made strides to improve quality and equity at state universities. The project helped reduce dropout: the third-year dropout rate fell by almost 10 percent from 2018-2022, keeping more students in school.

The World Bank’s first  Program-for-Results financing in education  was through a $202 million project in  Tanzania , that ran from 2013-2021. The project linked funding to results and aimed to improve education quality. It helped build capacity, and enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in the education sector. Through the project, learning outcomes significantly improved alongside an unprecedented expansion of access to education for children in Tanzania. From 2013-2019, an additional 1.8 million students enrolled in primary schools. In 2019, the average reading speed for Grade 2 students rose to 22.3 words per minute, up from 17.3 in 2017. The project laid the foundation for the ongoing $500 million  BOOST project , which supports over 12 million children to enroll early, develop strong foundational skills, and complete a quality education.

The $40 million  Cambodia  Secondary Education Improvement project , which ran from 2017-2022, focused on strengthening school-based management, upgrading teacher qualifications, and building classrooms in Cambodia, to improve learning outcomes, and reduce student dropout at the secondary school level. The project has directly benefited almost 70,000 students in 100 target schools, and approximately 2,000 teachers and 600 school administrators received training.

The World Bank is co-financing the $152.80 million  Yemen  Restoring Education and Learning Emergency project , running from 2020-2024, which is implemented through UNICEF, WFP, and Save the Children. It is helping to maintain access to basic education for many students, improve learning conditions in schools, and is working to strengthen overall education sector capacity. In the time of crisis, the project is supporting teacher payments and teacher training, school meals, school infrastructure development, and the distribution of learning materials and school supplies. To date, almost 600,000 students have benefited from these interventions.

The $87 million  Providing an Education of Quality in  Haiti  project supported approximately 380 schools in the Southern region of Haiti from 2016-2023. Despite a highly challenging context of political instability and recurrent natural disasters, the project successfully supported access to education for students. The project provided textbooks, fresh meals, and teacher training support to 70,000 students, 3,000 teachers, and 300 school directors. It gave tuition waivers to 35,000 students in 118 non-public schools. The project also repaired 19 national schools damaged by the 2021 earthquake, which gave 5,500 students safe access to their schools again.

In 2013, just 5% of the poorest households in  Uzbekistan  had children enrolled in preschools. Thanks to the  Improving Pre-Primary and General Secondary Education Project , by July 2019, around 100,000 children will have benefitted from the half-day program in 2,420 rural kindergartens, comprising around 49% of all preschool educational institutions, or over 90% of rural kindergartens in the country.

In addition to working closely with governments in our client countries, the World Bank also works at the global, regional, and local levels with a range of technical partners, including foundations, non-profit organizations, bilaterals, and other multilateral organizations. Some examples of our most recent global partnerships include:

UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  Coalition for Foundational Learning

The World Bank is working closely with UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the  Coalition for Foundational Learning  to advocate and provide technical support to ensure foundational learning.  The World Bank works with these partners to promote and endorse the  Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning , a global network of countries committed to halving the global share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 by 2030.

Australian Aid, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Echida Giving, FCDO, German Cooperation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, LEGO Foundation, Porticus, USAID: Early Learning Partnership

The Early Learning Partnership (ELP) is a multi-donor trust fund, housed at the World Bank.  ELP leverages World Bank strengths—a global presence, access to policymakers and strong technical analysis—to improve early learning opportunities and outcomes for young children around the world.

We help World Bank teams and countries get the information they need to make the case to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD), design effective policies and deliver impactful programs. At the country level, ELP grants provide teams with resources for early seed investments that can generate large financial commitments through World Bank finance and government resources. At the global level, ELP research and special initiatives work to fill knowledge gaps, build capacity and generate public goods.

UNESCO, UNICEF:  Learning Data Compact

UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank have joined forces to close the learning data gaps that still exist and that preclude many countries from monitoring the quality of their education systems and assessing if their students are learning. The three organizations have agreed to a  Learning Data Compact , a commitment to ensure that all countries, especially low-income countries, have at least one quality measure of learning by 2025, supporting coordinated efforts to strengthen national assessment systems.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS):   Learning Poverty Indicator

Aimed at measuring and urging attention to foundational literacy as a prerequisite to achieve SDG4, this partnership was launched in 2019 to help countries strengthen their learning assessment systems, better monitor what students are learning in internationally comparable ways and improve the breadth and quality of global data on education.

FCDO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  EdTech Hub

Supported by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the EdTech Hub is aimed at improving the quality of ed-tech investments. The Hub launched a rapid response Helpdesk service to provide just-in-time advisory support to 70 low- and middle-income countries planning education technology and remote learning initiatives.

MasterCard Foundation

Our Tertiary Education and Skills  global program, launched with support from the Mastercard Foundation, aims to prepare youth and adults for the future of work and society by improving access to relevant, quality, equitable reskilling and post-secondary education opportunities.  It is designed to reframe, reform, and rebuild tertiary education and skills systems for the digital and green transformation.

Bridging the AI divide: Breaking down barriers to ensure women’s leadership and participation in the Fifth Industrial Revolution

Common challenges and tailored solutions: How policymakers are strengthening early learning systems across the world

Compulsory education boosts learning outcomes and climate action

Areas of focus.

Digital Technologies

Early Childhood Development

Education Data & Measurement

Education Finance

Education in Fragile, Conflict & Violence Contexts

Girls’ Education

Higher Education

Inclusive Education

Initiatives

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• Tertiary Education and Skills Program
• Service Delivery Indicators
• Evoke: Transforming education to empower youth
• Global Education Policy Dashboard
• Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel
• Show Less -

Collapse and Recovery: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Eroded Human Capital and What to Do About It

BROCHURES & FACT SHEETS

Publication: Realizing Education's Promise: A World Bank Retrospective – August 2023

Education and Climate Change flyer - November 2022

Learning Losses Brochure - October 2022

World Bank Group Education Fact Sheet - September 2022

STAY CONNECTED

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Global Education Newsletter - March 2024

What's happening in the World Bank Education Global Practice? Read to learn more.

Human Capital Project

The Human Capital Project is a global effort to accelerate more and better investments in people for greater equity and economic growth.

Impact Evaluations

Research that measures the impact of education policies to improve education in low and middle income countries.

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Why Access to Education is Key to Systemic Equality

All students have a right to an equal education, but students of color — particularly Black and Brown students and students with disabilities, have historically been marginalized and criminalized by the public school system. The ACLU has been working to challenge unconstitutional disciplinary policies in schools, combat classroom censorship efforts that disproportionately impact marginalized students, and support race conscious admission policies to increase access to higher education.

Let’s break down why education equity is critical to the fight for systemic equality.

What does “education equity” mean, and why is it a civil rights issue?

Education equity means all students have equal access to a high quality education, safe learning environment, and a diverse student body that enriches the educational experiences of all students.

As the Supreme Court said in Brown v. Board of Education , education “is the very foundation of good citizenship.” Through education, young people learn important values about our culture and democratic society, and about their own values and relationships to others in this society. In addition to being an important foundation for kids’ and young adults’ future professional success, education allows individuals to be informed voters and participants in democratic processes, and public education is the first experience most people will have with the government.

For all of these reasons, equity in education is a critical foundation for a democratic society in which people of all backgrounds are equally included. Without equal opportunities to obtain an education, they will not be able to participate equally in jobs, in voting, and in other crucial areas of life. And when students are not able to learn together, this harms their ability to work together and live and engage with one another later in life.

What was the foundational Supreme Court case aimed at addressing discrimination in education nationwide?

Modern understandings of educational equity have their roots in Brown v. Board of Education , the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision that ordered an end to school segregation and held racial segregation in education violates the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution. The ACLU played an important role in the Brown litigation, and has continued to fight for education equity on many fronts in the decades since.

What is the “school-to-prison pipeline”?

The school-to-prison pipeline refers to school discipline practices, such as suspensions and referrals to law enforcement, that funnel youth out of the classroom and into the juvenile and criminal legal systems.

This trend reflects our country’s prioritization of incarceration over education, and it’s made worse as resources for public schools are cut. From inadequate resources for counseling to an overreliance on school-based police officers to enforce harsh zero-tolerance policies, many students — overwhelmingly students of color and students with disabilities — are isolated, punished, and pushed out of our education system for typical childish behavior and behaviors associated with disabilities.

Cops and No Counselors

How the lack of school mental health staff is harming students.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

Even a single suspension or disciplinary infraction can have enormous consequences for a child’s education. As a student is pushed further down the school-to-prison pipeline, those consequences escalate quickly. In some jurisdictions, students who have been suspended or expelled have no right to an education at all. In others, they are sent to disciplinary alternative schools.Youth who become involved in the juvenile system are often denied procedural protections in the courts, and students pushed along the pipeline find themselves in juvenile detention facilities, many of which provide few, if any, educational services.

How are Black students, students of color, and students with disabilities disproportionately impacted by discrimination in education? What barriers to higher education exist for students of color?

Black and Brown students and students with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to discipline and referrals to law enforcement that remove them from the classroom and subject them to additional punitive consequences and even physical injury. For example, over the 2017-2018 school year, Black students accounted for 28.7 percent of all students referred to law enforcement and 31.6 percent of all students arrested at school or during a school-related activity — despite representing just 15.1 percent of the total enrolled student population.

Our country’s schools are increasingly diverse, but also increasingly segregated . Students of all races are harmed by the inability to learn with one another in diverse school settings. Black and Latine students are also more likely to attend schools that are intensely segregated both by race and by socioeconomic status. Students of color are also less likely to have access to advanced courses, and are frequently tracked away from college preparatory courses when they do exist.

Moving Beyond the Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Rulings

The work to ensure educational opportunities for people of color continues, despite the court’s decision.

Inequities in K-12 education can be replicated in college and university admissions criteria. As with elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities are required to ensure that educational opportunities are open to all students from the application stage and through student’s experiences during their college education. There are a wide range of things that colleges and universities can do to ensure that educational opportunities are open to people of all backgrounds.

What non-punitive responses should schools take when approaching school discipline issues? What non-punitive resources should schools invest in?

There are a range of evidence-based methods schools can use to respond to the behavioral needs of students. These range from strategies that teachers and schools can use to foster a positive learning culture and model, to interventions addressing particular disciplinary issues, such as conflict de-escalation or restorative justice, to using functional behavioral assessments and wraparound support for those students with higher levels of need.

Additionally, schools that employed more mental health providers saw improved student engagement and graduation rates . Schools that used other types of support, including restorative and trauma-informed practices, saw beneficial results, including reduced disciplinary incidents, suspensions, dropouts, and expulsions. Investing in mental health resources, support personnel, and interventions that promote positive student interactions can make schools safer and healthier learning environments, while also helping to combat the discriminatory school-to-prison pipeline that targets students of color and students with disabilities.

How do classroom censorship efforts (i.e. laws that block students and teachers from talking and learning about race and gender) lead to inequality in education?

Instruction about racism and sexism belongs in schools because it equips students to process the world around them and to live in a multicultural society.

Attacks on education have morphed from demands to exclude critical race theory from classrooms to ever-increasingly devious and dangerous demands to erase entire concepts from American history. Book bans, so-called transparency laws designed to intimidate educators into compliance, and attacks on individual expression have left our education system at the mercy of a hostile and discriminatory minority. Students can’t learn in that type of environment. Our future depends on educational institutions that value instruction about systemic racism and sexism. We need to expand culturally relevant instruction and increase funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools, not attack it for its role in uplifting the systematically oppressed.

What can colleges do to ensure they create opportunities for students of color in light of the recent Supreme Court decision effectively eliminating the use of affirmative action in college admissions?

Affirmative action in college admissions has been an important tool, but it is not the only avenue for ensuring that educational opportunities are open to all. In the absence of affirmative action, it is more important than ever that schools work to identify and remove inequitable barriers to higher education. At a minimum, schools must continue to comply with federal and state civil rights laws that require them to provide educational opportunities on an equal basis. They can achieve this by ensuring that policies and practices do not unnecessarily limit opportunities for people on the basis of race or ethnicity (or other protected characteristics, including disability, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity) and by ensuring that school climate enables all students to access and engage with educational opportunities .

What does the ACLU’s work in education equity look like today?

The ACLU and our affiliates around the country are challenging disciplinary policies that disparately target students of color and students with disabilities and infringe on their right to a safe learning environment. This includes litigation, such as our recent victory resulting in the end to charging students with “disorderly conduct” or “disturbing schools” in South Carolina schools, and advocacy, such as the ACLU of Idaho’s recent report Proud to be Brown and the related civil rights complaint. The report documents how school districts in Idaho are jeopardizing Latine students’ civil rights and liberties by enforcing “gang” dress codes that target mostly Latine students in a discriminatory way, and have negative consequences on their cultural identity, discipline, and education.

CYAP v. Wilson

The ACLU Union filed a federal lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s “disturbing schools” law.

We are also fighting back against efforts to ban books and restrict what students can learn about race, gender, and sexual orientation. In Florida, for example, we’re challenging the state’s harmful Stop WOKE Act. We continue to press for equity in higher education following the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, and defend against attacks on diversity in K-12 schools.

From K-12 to higher education, the ACLU is working to combat discrimination in education and ensure all people have equal access to safe, quality education.

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• Human Rights and Racial Justice
• Human Rights

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Global Education Monitoring Report

Education for all - Is the world on track?

At the start of the new century, governments and the international community set targets to dramatically improve educational opportunities for children, youth and adults over the next 15 years. They underscored that education is vital to reducing world poverty and fostering a more equitable, peaceful and sustainable future.

Are they living up to their promises? The Education for All Global Monitoring Report, an annual independent publication, aims to hold the global community to account by rigorously assessing progress, analysing effective policies, spreading knowledge about good practice, and alerting the world to emerging challenges. The 2002 Report, "Is the World on Track," warns that "almost one-third of the world's population live in countries where achieving the Education for All goals will remain a dream unless a strong concerted effort is made".

At the start of the new century, governments and the international community set targets to dramatically improve educational opportunities for children, youth and adults over the next 15 years.

How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

Education for All

 It’s time for higher education institutions to take more meaningful steps to bring an education for all into the college experience.  Look at a new white paper published by McGraw Hill.  They talked to administrators, instructors, students, and thought leaders across the country to identify what’s working and what isn’t.  

The white paper shines a light on ways institutions can rethink and reframe how to help give every single student what they need to succeed in college and beyond. Here’s a snapshot of the paper. 

Where to start and with whom? 

Making progress towards an education for all starts with understanding which groups of students are being left behind.  

Research has identified minority and differently-abled students such as those with children, physical disabilities, depression, and student-loan debt as groups needing particular attention.

How can higher education institutions help? 

We need to understand the hurdles facing institutions, and what can be done to overcome them and measure progress. 

The good news? More than half of the nation’s higher education institutions have implemented initiatives addressing Education for All.

The not-so-good news? 

• Less than 2% have seen those initiatives succeed 
• 1 out of 5 institutions have not made changes to address equity issues
• 1 out of 10 institutions are discussing equity issues but not taking action to address those issues

How can higher education institutions overcome the hurdles? 

Institutions can begin by adopting a new framework that more effectively tackles issues with student populations and school administration. McGraw Hill’s  Success in Higher Education  is such a framework, one that allows and empowers educators to make the necessary changes, overcome systemic hurdles, and support key student groups. It builds on notable ones like the Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Value Framework, the Center for Collaborative Education Equity Framework, and the Farmington Equity Framework.   

The Success in Higher Education Framework comprises:  

•  Access and Achievement  

Create the space students need to focus on their academic goals; give them resources that meet their basic needs. Provide high-quality course materials and make them available on day one. Customize instruction for the student. Every student has a unique learning ability and pace, and adaptive software can create tailored and dynamic paths to success.  

• Being  and Belonging 

Feeling like they can be themselves and belong to their learning environment helps students with academic achievement. This also means being celebrated for standing out and relating to those in the classroom and the institution at large with similar backgrounds as theirs–including faculty and administration. 

• Cause and Career   

Times have changed and having a degree and visiting the college career office to look for work are no longer guarantees of getting a job. Institutions can partner with employers to help connect students with potential employment opportunities.  

Education for All is attainable. Learn what you can do to help bring about meaningful change at your institution by  clicking here  to read McGraw Hill’s Education for All white paper. 

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Opinion | ‘Equity’ grading is latest destined-to-fail…

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Opinion | ‘Equity’ grading is latest destined-to-fail education fad

SACRAMENTO – Modern public-education history is littered with novel  education theories  that have failed so spectacularly that the terms are now used as pejoratives. For instance, when I was in elementary school in the 1960s, the “New Math” focused on teaching abstractions rather than fundamentals. You can find reams of research documenting its failure decades later, but the evidence was recognized almost immediately.

That then-new approach “ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible to learn the newer creations if one does not know the older ones,” according to Morris Kline’s 1973  book , “Why Johnny Can’t Add.” Another well-known but more recent failure is  “Common Core,”  a set of educational standards embraced by California and 39 other states in 2010. On hindsight, it also deserves a failing grade.

“Despite the theory’s intuitive appeal, standards-based reform does not work very well in reality,” wrote a 2021 Brookings Institution  report . “The illusion of a coherent, well-coordinated system is gained at the expense of teachers’ flexibility in tailoring instruction to serve their students.” Don’t get me started on some of the loopier ones – pass-fail grading, the replacement of  phonics  with whole-language learning, and  Social Emotional Learning  (SEL).

“Education in the United States has lurched from fad to fad for the better part of a century, finding ever-ingenious ways to underperform preceding generations,”  explained  investigative reporter Joe Herring in a 2022 piece reviewing some of them. Apparently, there isn’t enough productive employment for education PhDs, so they spend their time dreaming up big experiments to improve education rather than focusing on the obvious ones.

The process gains life as evidence pours in about the latest underperformance. And the latest data certainly is impressive, albeit in a depressing way. Following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, traditional public schools (and California’s in particular) couldn’t rise to the occasion. Teachers’ unions slowed re-openings. Test scores  plummeted , especially for poor and minority students. Many students checked out permanently, as soaring  chronic absentee rates  prove.

Always eager to embrace easy-button solutions rather than, say, ideas that promote competitiveness and excellence, our school bureaucracies are on to some “innovative” ideas that have a ballpark-zero chance of improving educational outcomes. The new ones are based around the concept of  equity . As with every education-reform fad, they sound OK in the elevator pitch. Who doesn’t support equity? But they will create a mess that further impedes student progress.

For instance, some Bay Area schools have approved “equity grading.” It’s strange to focus on grading rather than teaching, but the details are even stranger. The Mercury News  reports  that one district removed “the practice of awarding zero points for assignments as long as they were ‘reasonably attempted.’” It also eliminated extra credit for class participation. EG offers students “multiple chances to make up missed or failed assignments and minimize homework’s impact on a student’s grade.” Now it will be almost impossible to get an A or an F.

It brings to mind Garrison Keilor’s  Lake Wobegon , the fictional Minnesota town “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.” Parents rightly worry that the new grading system will promote slacking. Why work extra hard when you won’t be able to get an A? Why try to improve when you won’t get worse than a C? It will create a false sense of equity – and make it tougher for colleges to recognize the best students.

Education theorists and consultants who promote this nonsense claim that it will encourage students and teachers to focus entirely on the  mastery of material  rather than surrounding fluff. They say it will better prepare students for the work world. Yet a lot of that so-called fluff – class participation, completing homework, handing in assignments on time – contribute mightily to such mastery.

State education officials also have jumped on the equity bandwagon. The California State Board of Education last year approved a new 1,000-page math framework that, as Education Week  reported , “aims to put meaning-making at the center of the math classroom” and “encourages teachers to make math culturally relevant and accessible for all students.” The framework isn’t binding on districts, but it will influence everything from textbooks to teaching standards.

I’m not sure how to make mathematical computations more meaningful and relevant, but I suppose someone will write a book about its failures in a few years. Meanwhile, many parents know what succeeds: competition. But providing additional  schooling options  would pressure school bureaucracies and jobs-protecting teachers’ unions to improve, and to them that’s not a tolerable outcome.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at  [email protected] .

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Biden Administration Releases Revised Title IX Rules

The new regulations extended legal protections to L.G.B.T.Q. students and rolled back several policies set under the Trump administration.

By Zach Montague and Erica L. Green

Reporting from Washington

The Biden administration issued new rules on Friday cementing protections for L.G.B.T.Q. students under federal law and reversing a number of Trump-era policies that dictated how schools should respond to cases of alleged sexual misconduct in K-12 schools and college campuses.

The new rules, which take effect on Aug. 1, effectively broadened the scope of Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. They extend the law’s reach to prohibit discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and widen the range of sexual harassment complaints that schools will be responsible for investigating.

“These regulations make it crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, said in a call with reporters.

The rules deliver on a key campaign promise for Mr. Biden, who declared he would put a “quick end” to the Trump-era Title IX rules and faced mounting pressure from Democrats and civil rights leaders to do so.

The release of the updated rules, after two delays, came as Mr. Biden is in the thick of his re-election bid and is trying to galvanize key electoral constituencies.

Through the new regulations, the administration moved to include students in its interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination. The Trump administration held that transgender students were not protected under federal laws, including after the Bostock ruling .

In a statement, Betsy DeVos, who served as Mr. Trump’s education secretary, criticized what she called a “radical rewrite” of the law, asserting that it was an “endeavor born entirely of progressive politics, not sound policy.”

Ms. DeVos said the inclusion of transgender students in the law gutted decades of protections and opportunities for women. She added that the Biden administration also “seeks to U-turn to the bad old days where sexual misconduct was sent to campus kangaroo courts, not resolved in a way that actually sought justice.”

While the regulations released on Friday contained considerably stronger protections for L.G.B.T.Q. students, the administration steered clear of the lightning-rod issue of whether transgender students should be able to play on school sports teams corresponding to their gender identity.

The administration stressed that while, writ large, exclusion based on gender identity violated Title IX, the new regulations did not extend to single-sex living facilities or sports teams. The Education Department is pursuing a second rule dealing with sex-related eligibility for male and female sports teams. The rule-making process has drawn more than 150,000 comments.

Under the revisions announced on Friday, instances where transgender students are subjected to a “hostile environment” through bullying or harassment, or face unequal treatment and exclusion in programs or facilities based on their gender identity, could trigger an investigation by the department’s Office for Civil Rights.

Instances where students are repeatedly referred to by a name or pronoun other than one they have chosen could also be considered harassment on a case-by-case basis.

“This is a bold and important statement that transgender and nonbinary students belong, in their schools and in their communities,” said Olivia Hunt, the policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality.

The regulations appeared certain to draw to legal challenges from conservative groups.

May Mailman, the director of the Independent Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the group planned to sue the administration. She said it was clear that the statute barring discrimination on the basis of “sex” means “binary and biological.”

“The unlawful omnibus regulation reimagines Title IX to permit the invasion of women’s spaces and the reduction of women’s rights in the name of elevating protections for ‘gender identity,’ which is contrary to the text and purpose of Title IX,” she said.

The existing rules, which took effect under Mr. Trump in 2020, were the first time that sexual assault provisions were codified under Title IX. They bolstered due process rights of accused students, relieved schools of some legal liabilities and laid out rigid parameters for how schools should conduct impartial investigations.

They were a sharp departure from the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law, which came in the form of unenforceable guidance documents directing schools to ramp up investigations into sexual assault complaints under the threat of losing federal funding. Scores of students who had been accused of sexual assault went on to win court cases against their colleges for violating their due process rights under the guidelines.

The Biden administration’s rules struck a balance between the Obama and Trump administration’s goals. Taken together, the regulation largely provides more flexibility for how schools conduct investigations, which advocates and schools have long lobbied for.

Catherine E. Lhamon, the head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights who also held the job under President Barack Obama, called the new rules the “most comprehensive coverage under Title IX since the regulations were first promulgated in 1975.”

They replaced a narrower definition of sex-based harassment adopted under the Trump administration with one that would include a wider range of conduct. And they reversed a requirement that schools investigate only incidents alleged to have occurred on their campuses or in their programs.

Still, some key provisions in the Trump-era rules were preserved, including one allowing informal resolutions and another prohibiting penalties against students until after an investigation.

Among the most anticipated changes was the undoing of a provision that required in-person, or so-called live hearings, in which students accused of sexual misconduct, or their lawyers, could confront and question accusers in a courtroom-like setting.

The new rules allow in-person hearings, but do not mandate them. They also require a process through which a decision maker could assess a party or witness’s credibility, including posing questions from the opposing party.

“The new regulations put an end to unfair and traumatic grievance procedures that favor harassers,” Kel O’Hara, a senior attorney at Equal Rights Advocates. “No longer will student survivors be subjected to processes that prioritize the interests of their perpetrators over their own well being and safety.”

The new rules also allow room for schools to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard, a lower burden of proof than the DeVos-era rules encouraged, through which administrators need only to determine whether it was more likely than not that sexual misconduct had occurred.

The renewed push for that standard drew criticism from legal groups who said the rule stripped away hard-won protections against flawed findings.

“When you are dealing with accusations of really one of the most heinous crimes that a person can commit — sexual assault — it’s not enough to say, ‘50 percent and a feather,’ before you brand someone guilty of this repulsive crime,” said Will Creeley, the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

The changes concluded a three-year process in which the department received 240,000 public comments. The rules also strengthen protections for pregnant students, requiring accommodations such as a bigger desk or ensuring access to elevators and prohibiting exclusion from activities based on additional needs.

Title IX was designed to end discrimination based on sex in educational programs or activities at all institutions receiving federal financial assistance, beginning with sports programs and other spaces previously dominated by male students.

The effects of the original law have been pronounced. Far beyond the impact on school programs like sports teams, many educators credit Title IX with setting the stage for academic parity today. Female college students routinely outnumber male students on campus and have become more likely than men of the same age to graduate with a four-year degree.

But since its inception, Title IX has also become a powerful vehicle through which past administrations have sought to steer schools to respond to the dynamic and diverse nature of schools and universities.

While civil rights groups were disappointed that some ambiguity remains for the L.G.B.T.Q. students and their families, the new rules were widely praised for taking a stand at a time when education debates are reminiscent to the backlash after the Supreme Court ordered schools to integrate.

More than 20 states have passed laws that broadly prohibit anyone assigned male at birth from playing on girls’ and women’s sports teams or participating in scholastic athletic programs, while 10 states have laws barring transgender people from using bathrooms based on their gender identity.

“Some adults are showing up and saying, ‘I’m going to make school harder for children,” said Liz King, senior program director of the education equity program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “It’s an incredibly important rule, at an incredibly important moment.”

Schools will have to cram over the summer to implement the rules, which will require a retraining staff and overhauling procedures they implemented only four years ago.

Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,700 colleges and universities, said in a statement that while the group welcomed the changes in the new rule, the timeline “disregards the difficulties inherent in making these changes on our nation’s campuses in such a short period of time.”

“After years of constant churn in Title IX guidance and regulations,” Mr. Mitchell said, “we hope for the sake of students and institutions that there will be more stability and consistency in the requirements going forward.”

Zach Montague is based in Washington. He covers breaking news and developments around the district. More about Zach Montague

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent, covering President Biden and his administration. More about Erica L. Green

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Biden’s new Title IX rules protect LGBTQ+ students, but avoid addressing transgender athletes

FILE - Demonstrators advocating for transgender rights and healthcare stand outside of the Ohio Statehouse on Jan. 24, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio. The rights of LGBTQ+ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday, April19, 2024, by the Biden administration. Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes. (AP Photo/Patrick Orsagos, File)

FILE - House Education and the Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx R-N.C., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 17, 2024. The rights of LGBTQ+ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday, April19, 2024, by the Biden administration. Foxx said the new regulation threatens decades of advancement for women and girls. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

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The rights of LGBTQ+ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration.

The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden. He had promised to dismantle rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos , who added new protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.

Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes.

The administration originally planned to include a new policy forbidding schools from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, but that provision was put on hold. The delay is widely seen as a political maneuver during an election year in which Republicans have rallied around bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Instead, Biden is officially undoing sexual assault rules put in place by his predecessor and current election-year opponent, former President Donald Trump. The final policy drew praise from victims’ advocates, while Republicans said it erodes the rights of accused students.

The new rule makes “crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.

“No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are, who they love,” Cardona told reporters. “Sadly, this happens all too often.”

Biden’s regulation is meant to clarify schools’ obligations under Title IX , the 1972 sex discrimination law originally passed to address women’s rights. It applies to colleges and elementary and high schools that receive federal money. The update is to take effect in August.

Among the biggest changes is new recognition that Title IX protects LGBTQ+ students — a source of deep conflict with Republicans.

The 1972 law doesn’t directly address the issue, but the new rules clarify that Title IX also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ+ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.

Many Republicans say Congress never intended such protections under Title IX. A federal judge previously blocked Biden administration guidance to the same effect after 20 Republican-led states challenged the policy .

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the new regulation threatens decades of advancement for women and girls.

“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” Foxx said in a statement.

In the last few years, many Republican-controlled states have adopted laws restricting the rights of transgender children , including banning gender-affirming medical care for minors. And at least 11 states restrict which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender students can use, banning them from using facilities that align with their gender identity.

But the rule makes clear that treating transgender students differently from their classmates is discrimination, putting the state bathroom restrictions in jeopardy, said Francicso M. Negron Jr., an attorney who specializes in education law.

The revision was proposed nearly two years ago but has been slowed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.

Many of the changes are meant to ensure that schools and colleges respond to complaints of sexual misconduct. In general, the rules widen the type of misconduct that institutions are required to address, and it grants more protections to students who bring accusations.

Chief among the changes is a wider definition of sexual harassment. Schools now must address any unwelcome sex-based conduct that is so “severe or pervasive” that it limits a student’s equal access to an education.

Under the DeVos rules, conduct had to be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive,” a higher bar that pushed some types of misconduct outside the purview of Title IX.

Colleges will no longer be required to hold live hearings to allow students to cross-examine one another through representatives — a signature provision from the DeVos rules.

Live hearings are allowed under the Biden rules, but they’re optional and carry new limits. Students must be able to participate from hearings remotely, for example, and schools must bar questions that are “unclear or harassing.”

As an alternative to live hearings, college officials can interview students separately, allowing each student to suggest questions and get a recording of the responses.

Those hearings were a major point of contention with victims’ advocates, who said it forced sexual assault survivors to face their attackers and discouraged people from reporting assaults. Supporters said it gave accused students a fair process to question their accusers, arguing that universities had become too quick to rule against accused students.

Victims’ advocates applauded the changes and urged colleges to implement them quickly.

“After years of pressure from students and survivors of sexual violence, the Biden Administration’s Title IX update will make schools safer and more accessible for young people, many of whom experienced irreparable harm while they fought for protection and support,” said Emma Grasso Levine, a senior manager at the group Know Your IX.

Despite the focus on safeguards for victims, the new rules preserve certain protections for accused students.

All students must have equal access to present evidence and witnesses under the new policy, and all students must have equal access to evidence. All students will be allowed to bring an advisor to campus hearings, and colleges must have an appeals process.

In general, accused students won’t be able to be disciplined until after they’re found responsible for misconduct, although the regulation allows for “emergency” removals if it’s deemed a matter of campus safety.

The American Council on Education, which represents higher education institutions, praised the new guidelines. But the group criticized the Aug. 1 compliance deadline. The timeline “disregards the difficulties inherent in making these changes on our nation’s campuses in such a short period of time,” ACE said in a statement.

The latest overhaul continues a back-and-forth political battle as presidential administrations repeatedly rewrite the rules around campus sexual misconduct.

DeVos criticized the new rule, writing on social media site X that it amounts to “ an assault on women and girls .” She said the new procedures for handling sexual assault accusations mark a return to “days where sexual misconduct was sent to campus kangaroo courts, not resolved in a way that actually sought justice,” she wrote.

The DeVos rules were themselves an overhaul of an Obama-era policy that was intended to force colleges to take accusations of campus sexual assault more seriously. Now, after years of nearly constant changes, some colleges have been pushing for a political middle ground to end the whiplash. ___

Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill, Annie Ma and Moriah Balingit contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .