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Education is the great leveller on the playing field of inequality and can give children hope


Millions of children and families around the world cannot take access to schooling for granted, as most in the West do.

  • More than 115 million 6- to 12-year-olds are not in school in the developing world; three-fifths of them are girls.

  • More than 150 million children in the developing world start school but do not complete four years; in Sub-Saharan Africa, only one in three who attend school complete a primary education.

  • The situation is particularly poor in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East, where proportionately more children are out of school than in other regions.

As it stands, poor educational outcomes and inefficient education systems are eliciting deep concern worldwide. In many countries, primary schools fail to provide students with appropriate cognitive skills like numeracy, literacy, problem-solving ability and general scientific knowledge.

  • In developed countries, 33% of the labour force has some level of advanced education. In developing countries, the ratio is 12%.

  • In developed countries, nearly 90% of the citizens went through some level of secondary education. In the developing world, only 63% of the citizens have that level of education.

  • In developing countries from the Middle East and sub-Saharan region, females do not have equal access to education as compared with males. In well-developed countries, the ratio of female and male students at all levels of education is almost equal.

  • Researchers found strong indicators that people from countries with low social inequality and higher average income invest more money in the education of their children. Students from these countries are also more likely to ask: “Can a professional writer do my assignment for me at https://au.edubirdie.com/do-my-assignment?” That’s because they face demanding standards, but they are ready to do whatever it takes to meet them.

According to the Center for Global Development

  • In many poor countries, with each additional year of schooling, people earn 10% higher wages. These earnings, in turn, contribute to national economic growth. No country has ever achieved continuous and rapid growth without reaching an adult literacy rate of at least 40%.

  • The majority of farmers in the developing world are women. Greater female education leads to more productive farming and accounts for over 40% of the decline in malnutrition achieved since 1970.


The World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development promote private-public partnerships to contribute knowledge, skills, and materials to global education. Companies such as BP and DaimlerChrysler support education programs in many countries through partnerships with local communities that extend beyond financial contributions.


Lee Jong-Wha, professor of economics and director of the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University writing for the World Economic Forum says there should be more investment in education.


Education is a fundamental driver of personal, national, and global development. Since the beginning of the century, recognition of this has driven many countries to pursue the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education and eradicating gender disparities at all levels of education by 2015. This has contributed to considerable progress in expanding educational opportunities and attainment worldwide. But there is much more to be done. Simply narrowing the gaps in school-enrolment rates and total years of schooling is not enough. Countries must also ensure the quality of their education systems – a key challenge for the coming decades.


Private financing and provision, school autonomy and external monitoring and assessment mechanisms tend to influence the quality of education by changing the incentives for students and teachers.


The imperative is clear. Global leaders must commit to enhancing the quality of education and reduce the education gap by increasing school resources, improving the efficiency of educational institutions, and seizing the opportunities afforded by technological innovation. All of this will serve to enrich human capital, which is essential to boosting productivity and incomes.


A 2018 World Bank study titled “Returns to Investment in Education; A Decennial Review of the Global Literature” by George Psacharopoulos Harry Antony Patrinos, stated that the concept of the rate of return on investment in education is very similar to that for any other investment. It is a summary of the costs and benefits of the investment incurred at different points in time, and it is expressed in an annual (percentage) yield, like that quoted for savings accounts or government bonds. Returns on investment in education based on human capital theory have been estimated since the late 1950s. Human capital theory puts forward the concept that investments in education increase future productivity.


The private returns to higher education are increasing, highest returns are recorded for low-income and middle-income countries, average returns to schooling are highest in Latin America and the Caribbean.


Regarding efficiency in the use of resources, spending on human capital is a good investment. For example, in the United States the long-term 1966 to 2015 average return on stocks and bonds is 2.4% (Damodaran 2016) versus a 10.5% overall private return to investment in education in our database for education.


Some strong arguments there. How has that left you feeling? Ultimately, we know you want to know that your investment is making a difference and that it will maintain impact far into the future. We would love you to be part of that legacy. Do connect with us to discuss turning this into a reality.

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