Learning crisis

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The learning crisis or global learning crisis is a term describing the fact that, despite a large increase in access to schooling, learning outcomes remain poor, especially in developing countries.^[1] Worldwide, millions of children who attend school do not acquire basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, and many more are far behind age-appropriate expectations in their national curricula.^[2] Proponents argue that this crisis needs to be addressed due to the importance of education in fostering children's development, social mobility, and subsequent opportunities.^[3]

Many factors have been identified as causes of the global learning crisis. These include inadequate funding, socioeconomic factors, and quality of teachers.^[4] Another contributing factor is that many education systems monitor educational quality using inadequate indicators. In many countries, governments rely on input-based proxies for quality such as budget spent on education and student enrolment numbers, rather than outcome-based measures of student learning.^[4]

Experts have argued that overcoming the global learning crisis will require systemic, well-aligned reform of national education systems that goes beyond addressing individual policy areas such as schooling access, student assessment, and teacher quality.^[5][6]