The World Development Report 2018 (WDR 2018)—LEARNING to Realise Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the timing is excellent: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to place their learning at the centre. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: 1) education’s promise; 2) the need to shine a light on learning; 3) how to make schools work for learners; and 4) how to make systems work for learning.
But the focus upon schools and formal education is a huge weakness in the report, with very little reference to adult and community education. Any inclusive lifelong education system and approach must recognise the need to support adults who left formal education often with few qualifications and in effect failed by the system. The formal system must open its walls to the wider community. We have long known this.
Main Messages
- Schooling is not the same as learning.
- Schooling without learning is not just a wasted opportunity, but a great injustice.
- There is nothing inevitable about low learning in low- and middle-income countries.
The Three Dimensions of the Learning Crisis
The crisis has three main dimensions:
- The first dimension of the crisis is the poor learning outcomes themselves.
- The second dimension of the learning crisis is its immediate causes:
- Children arrive unprepared to learn.
- Teachers often lack the skills or motivation to teach effectively.
- Inputs often fail to reach classrooms or to affect learning.
- Poor management and governance often undermine schooling quality.
- The third dimension of the crisis is its deeper systemic causes.
The Three Policy Actions to Address the Crisis
- Assess learning, to make it a serious goal.
- Act on evidence, to make schools work for learners.
- Align actors, to make the system work for learning.
