Learning Recovery to Acceleration A Global Update on Country Efforts to Improve Learning and Reduce Inequalities

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, global learning levels were unacceptably low. In 2019, learning poverty, the share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10, had reached 57 percent in low- and middle-income countries (World Bank and others 2022b). This constituted a global learning crisis. Despite significant expansion in access to schooling in most low, and middle-income countries over the past 50 years to near-universal levels for primary school, progress in improving global learning levels had stalled.

This report takes stock of what countries have done so far to recover and accelerate learning since reopening schools, and what we have learned from their experience. It follows the RAPID Framework for Learning Recovery and Acceleration, which we published with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), UNESCO, UNICEF and USAID in 2022 as a menu of policy actions based on past evidence and on policies that many countries were already implementing. To a large extent, many of the policies and interventions needed to recover from the pandemic setbacks and accelerate learning are known. One lesson is clear: political and financial commitment are vital for improving learning and reducing inequality. Effective education strategies require societies' determination to make education a priority and devote the necessary human and financial resources to end the learning crisis. Policymakers, schools, and communities must work urgently to recover learning, tackle deep-rooted systemic challenges, and build resilience to future disruptions.