February 5, 2025 – The latest UN report underscores the urgent need to address the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global education. Learning losses have been significant, with four out of five of the 104 countries studied experiencing setbacks. Without additional measures, an estimated 84 million children and young people will remain out of school by 2030, and approximately 300 million students will lack basic numeracy and literacy skills.
The report emphasizes the importance of providing free primary and secondary schooling for all boys and girls by 2030, along with equal access to affordable vocational training, eliminating gender and wealth disparities, and achieving universal access to quality higher education. Education is seen as a key enabler for achieving many other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), empowering individuals to break the cycle of poverty, reducing inequalities, promoting gender equality, and fostering healthier and more sustainable lives.
While progress has been made towards the 2030 education targets, with increases in worldwide primary school completion, lower secondary completion, and upper secondary completion between 2015 and 2021, the pace of progress has been notably slower compared to the 15 years prior. Persistent challenges, such as economic constraints, learning outcomes, dropout rates, and low levels of information and communications technology (ICT) skills, continue to impede efforts to provide inclusive and equitable education for all.
Sub-Saharan Africa faces the greatest challenges in providing schools with basic resources, with less than half of schools at the primary and lower secondary levels having access to drinking water, electricity, computers, and the Internet. The digital divide further exacerbates inequalities in education access.
Women and girls are among the groups facing the most significant barriers to education, with about 40 percent of countries yet to achieve gender parity in primary education. These educational disadvantages translate into limited opportunities in the labor market for young women.
To address these challenges, the report calls for governments to prioritize education financing as a national investment. Key measures include making education free and compulsory, increasing the number of teachers, improving basic school infrastructure, and embracing digital transformation. Governments are urged to make firm commitments to provide free primary school education to all, including vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Continued global commitment and collective action are essential to ensure that quality education is accessible to all, leaving no one behind, and to achieve the ambitious education goals set for 2030.