Africa Progress Report calls for big push on education

Urgent action is needed to tackle a “twin crisis” in access to education and the quality of teaching, according to the 2012 Africa Progress Report, Jobs, Justice and Equity: Seizing Opportunities in Times of Global Change, which was launched on Friday at the World Economic Forum on Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “With 30 million [...]

More children are in school – but are they learning?

By Susan Davis, president and chief executive, BRAC USA With the Education for All goals and the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015 on our minds, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about measurements of educational quality, rather than a simple push for increased student enrollment in developing countries. Most public schools in the [...]

Rural women miss out on education — and decent jobs

By Pauline Rose, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8, “Empower Rural Women,” sheds light on the struggle that many poor, rural women face in completing even the most basic education — a finding that is backed up by new data analysis [...]

The struggle to learn skills in the city

UNICEF’s flagship annual report, launched today, focuses on the lives of marginalized children in urban areas. The State of the World’s Children 2012 finds that children in urban environments are often denied their right to education, leaving many without the skills they need to find a good job. Almost half of the world’s children now [...]

Listening to the voices of young people

No one feels more strongly than young people themselves the mismatch between the jobs that are available and the skills that they acquire in education systems. Or, for many, the skills they don’t get a chance to acquire: 74 million adolescents aren’t even enrolled at school. That’s why we are currently listening to the voices [...]

Who is responsible for developing youth skills?

What role should the private sector play in developing the skills of young people? That’s one of the questions likely to come up at two international events on the theme of our upcoming 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report – how skills development can improve marginalized young people’s opportunities for decent jobs and better [...]

Why school should speak your language

People whose mother tongue is different from their country’s official language can find this a barrier to thriving in society. But does that mean children should be educated only in the official language? It’s a complex question. As we found in the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Reaching the Marginalized, educating children in their [...]

World Youth Report puts focus on skills

As youth unemployment figures continue to rise in many parts of the world, the need for young people to have the skills that employers want is drawing more and more attention – not least from the young themselves. Their voices can be heard in the latest UN World Youth Report, “Youth Employment: youth perspectives on [...]

How do skills develop? Cognitive neuroscience offers some insights

By Helen Abadzi, Senior Education Specialist, Global Partnership for Education Developing countries want their citizens to acquire and use complex skills, but there is much debate over the best ways to achieve this (as the 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report will examine). Yet specific answers do exist, and they come from cognitive science. [...]

Help us picture the future!

We’re running an artwork contest for young people on the theme of youth, skills and work – the focus of our forthcoming 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report. The winner’s work will be used in the report. The contest is open to those aged 18 to 24, and the deadline is 1 April 2012. [...]