ENDING LEARNING POVERTY: WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

AT the High Level Conference on Accelerating Learning in the Middle East and Africa from February 13 to 14, 2020 in Cairo, Egypt, the World Bank launched a new concept of “Learning Poverty” which means being unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10.

What is the background to this new concept or measurement?

All children should be able to read by age 10. Reading is a gateway for learning as the child progresses through school – and conversely, an inability to read slams that gate shut.

Beyond this, when children cannot read, it is usually a clear indication that school systems aren’t well enough organised to help children learn in other areas such as math, science, and the humanities either.

And although it is possible to learn later in life with enough effort, children who don’t read by age 10 – or at the latest, by the end of primary school – usually fail to master reading later in their schooling career.

Facing a learning crisis

In recent years, it has become clear that many children around the world are not learning to read proficiently. Even though the majority of children are in school, a large proportion is not acquiring fundamental skills. Moreover, 260 million children are not even in school. This is the leading edge of a learning crisis that threatens countries’ efforts to build human capital and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without foundational learning, students often fail to thrive later in school or when they join the workforce.

They don’t acquire the human capital they need to power their careers and economies once they leave school, or the skills that will help them become engaged citizens and nurture healthy, prosperous families.

Negative effects of the learning poverty human capital index

As a major contributor to human capital deficits, the learning crisis undermines sustainable growth and poverty reduction. The Human Capital Project is raising awareness of the costs of inaction.

The average Human Capital Index (HCI) score across countries is 0.56; this means that by the age of 18, a child born today will be only 56 percent as productive as a child would be under the benchmark of complete education and full health. Shortcomings in the quality and quantity of schooling which have been summarised as a learning crisis, are a leading contributor to this human capital deficit.

Poor education outcomes have major costs for future prosperity, given that human capital is the most important component of wealth globally.

Indeed, its importance grows as countries become more prosperous: in high-income Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, human capital makes up over 60 percent of wealth.

Learning poverty

To spotlight this crisis, the World Bank are introducing the concept of Learning Poverty, drawing on new data developed in coordination with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Learning poverty means being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. This indicator brings together schooling and learning indicators: it begins with the share of children who haven’t achieved minimum reading proficiency (as measured in schools) and is adjusted by the proportion of children who are out of school (and are assumed not able to read proficiently).

What proportion of children are learning poor in the low and middle income countries

The new data show that 53 percent of all children in low and middle income countries suffer from learning poverty. Progress in reducing learning poverty is far too slow to meet the SDG aspirations: at the current rate of improvement in 2030 about 43 percent of children will still be learning poor.

Even in countries reduce their learning poverty at the fastest rates we have seen so far in this century, the goal of ending it will not be attained by 2030.

There are huge differences in late primary reading outcomes across countries. The share of learning-poor children (those who cannot read and understand a simple text by the end of primary) are 90 percent in poor countries and nine percent in rich countries.

World Bank’s learning revolution to eradicate learning poverty

There is an urgent need for a society-wide commitment to invest more and better in people. If children cannot read, it is clear that all education SDGs are at risk. Eliminating learning poverty is as important as eliminating extreme monetary poverty, stunting, or hunger.

To achieve it in the foreseeable future requires far more rapid progress at scale than we have yet seen.

To galvanise this progress and strengthen its own efforts, the World Bank is:

Launching a new operational global learning target to cut the Learning Poverty rate by at least half before 2030 ·

Simulations show that this target is ambitious yet achievable if all countries manage to improve learning as well as the top performers of the 2000 to 2015 period did – which means on average nearly tripling the global rate of progress.

Using three key pillars of work to support countries to improve the human capital outcomes of their people ·

A literacy policy package consisting of interventions focused specifically on promoting acquisition of reading proficiency in primary school. · A refreshed education approach to strengthen entire education systems – so that literacy improvements can be sustained and scaled up and all other education outcomes can be achieved. · An ambitious measurement and research agenda – covering measurement of both learning outcomes and their drivers and continued action oriented research and innovation on how to build foundational skills. Change is needed at scale, quickly and for large populations. That cannot be done without technology. Opensource digital infrastructure and information systems will be used to ensure that resources reach all teachers, students and schools.

What will fight against learning poverty require?

Educational initiatives alone are not enough. The fight against learning poverty will require an integrated, multi-sectoral approach supported by actions beyond the education sector –that is, in all the other areas essential to improve learning.

For example, ensuring that all children can learn requires better water and sanitation, improved health and nutrition, better social protection for disadvantaged populations, civil service reforms, and strengthened management and financing of public services.

All of this requires a whole-of-government approach to better learning outcomes. Beyond this, renewed attention is needed to the role that families and communities play in building the demand for education, creating the right environment for learning, and supporting the right education reforms.

The Human Capital Project recognises this need to work across sectors to bring together all the actions required to improve human capital.

The author is an educationist and educational assessment expert.