solution to the problem of education

10 Ways to Tackle Education’s Urgent Challenges

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To America’s resilient educators:

Take a moment to reflect on your many accomplishments during the pandemic, as well as the challenges you have faced.

You’ve supported your teams, your students, your school families and communities, all while balancing your own lives. In spite of every obstacle, you pushed through because that’s what you do. Every day.

And then, this spring, the sun seemed to shine a bit brighter. The safe and reliable vaccines that were slowing the spread of the virus forecasted a return to a normal-ish school year ahead. But COVID-19 had another plan, and its name was the Delta variant.

So here we are. And it’s complicated.

The cover of this year’s Big Ideas report from Education Week and the 10 essays inside reflect this moment and the constellation of emotions we know you’re experiencing: hope, excitement, grief, urgency, trepidation, and a deep sense of purpose.

In the report, we ask hard questions about education’s big challenges and offer some solutions. Keep scrolling for a roundup of these challenges and some new ways to think about them.

The report also includes results from an exclusive survey on educator stress, what you did well during the pandemic, and more .

Please connect with us on social media by using #K12BigIdeas or by emailing [email protected] . May the year ahead be a safe and fruitful one for you.

1. Schools are doing too much

We’re asking schools to accomplish more than what their funding allows and we’re asking their employees to do far more than they’ve been trained to do. Read more.

2. Student homelessness

The pandemic has only made student homelessness situation more volatile. Schools don’t have to go it alone. Read more.

3. Racism in schools

Born and raised in India, reporter Eesha Pendharkar isn’t convinced that America’s anti-racist efforts are enough to make students of color feel like they belong. Read more.

4. Teacher mental health

The pandemic has put teachers through the wringer. Administrators must think about their educators’ well-being differently. Read more.

5. Educator grief

Faced with so many loses stemming from the pandemic, what can be done to help teachers manage their own grief? Read more.

6. The well-being of school leaders

By overlooking the well-being of their school leaders, districts could limit how much their schools can flourish. Read more.

7. Remote learning

Educators in schools who were technologically prepared for the pandemic say the remote-learning emergency has provided new opportunities to explore better ways to connect with students and adapt instruction. Read more.

8. Setting students up for success

Educators know a lot more about students’ home learning environments than before the pandemic. How might schools build on that awareness and use it to improve their future work? Read more.

9. Parent engagement

When school went remote, families got a better sense of what their children were learning. It’s something schools can build on, if they can make key cultural shifts. Read more.

10. Knowing your purpose

We can’t build resilient schools until we agree on what education’s core role should be. And right now, we don’t agree. Read more.

A version of this article appeared in the September 15, 2021 edition of Education Week as Editor’s Note

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The Seekers

• Posted November 7, 2022
• By Lory Hough
• Entrepreneurship

In the education world, it’s easy to identify problems, less easy to find solutions. Everyone has a different idea of what could or should happen, and change is never simple — or fast. But solutions are out there, especially if you look close to the source: people who have been impacted in some way by the problem. Meet eight current students and recent graduates who experienced something — sometimes pain, sometimes frustration, sometimes hope — and are now working on ways to help others.

SEEKER: Elijah Armstrong, Ed.M.'20

“This motivated me to become an activist in the space of disability and education,” he says. “Education is supposed to act as a gateway for students, but far too often, for people with disabilities, it acts as a barrier.”

His experience led him to start a nonprofit while he was in college at Penn State called Equal Opportunities for Students “as a way to help tell the stories of marginalized students in education.” Then last year, he won the 2021 Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award, an award given by the American Association of People with Disabilities that recognizes up and coming leaders with disabilities. With his prize money, Armstrong started his own award program: the Heumann-Armstrong Educational Awards, named partly for disability rights activist Judy Heumann. The award is given annually to students (sixth grade and up) who have experienced ableism — the social prejudice against people with disabilities — and have fought against it.

“Students with disabilities face barriers in education that aren’t faced by their non-disabled peers,” he says. “At all levels of education, students are forced to do intense emotional and logistical labor to fight for accommodations or go without accommodations at all. This is on top of the day-to-day challenges of having a disability or chronic illness, and the challenges that go along with that. Students with disabilities should have ways of being compensated for that labor and denoting that labor on resumes.”

One of the unique aspects of the award program, he says, is that winners aren’t restricted on how they can use their award money, although several from the inaugural round have used it to fund their own activism. For example, Otto Lana, a high school student, started a company called Otto’s Mottos that sells T-shirts and letterboards to help purchase communication devices for non-speaking students who can’t afford them. Himani Hitendra, a middle schooler, has been producing videos to educate her teachers and classmates about her disability, as well as ways they can be more inclusive. Jennifer Lee, a Princeton student, founded the Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative.

Armstrong, who is also currently living and working in Washington, D.C. as a fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, says beyond awarding money to other young activists, one of the biggest and most impactful ways he thinks he’s helping to challenge the education system is through the videos his nonprofit produces for each of the winners.

“We highlight the award winners and give them a platform to tell their stories in a way that gives them agency,” he says. “Education doesn’t often take the voices or experiences of disabled students into account when discussing accessibility in education. We want to make sure we develop a platform that gives voice to the narratives of these students, so that everyone can listen to and learn from them.”

Learn about his nonprofit: equalopportunitiesforstudents.org

SEEKER: Elisa Guerra, Ed.M.’21

In the early 2000s, Guerra wasn’t finding the kind of educational experience for her young children near her home in Aguascalientes, México, that she was looking for — one that was warm, but also ambitious and fun and stimulating.

“I saw a gap between what schools offered at that time and what parents like me were dreaming of for their young,” she says. “After my son went through three different schools and none was a true fit, I decided that I needed to imagine and create the school I wanted for my children.”

So Guerra, without any formal teaching experience, started Colegio Valle de Filadelfia, a small preschool with 17 kids that was based on what she was doing informally at home with her ownchildren. Those first few years, she says she pretty much did every job the school had, learning along the way.

“I taught. I answered the phone. I designed our programs. I managed promotion and enrollment,” she says. “I also changed diapers, cleaned noses, and mopped puke.” For many years, she served as the principal.

She also fine-tuned their learning model, what they started calling Método Filadelfia , or the Philadelphia Method. Based on the work of Glenn Doman and The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, their model isn’t your typical approach for helping young children learn.

“We teach — playfully and respectfully — tiny children, starting at age three, to read, and [we also teach] art, physical excellence, and world cultures as the first steps of global citizenship,” she says. Music lessons, including violin, are started at the preschool level, and classes are taught in two foreign languages in addition to a student’s first language. When Guerra first started the school, there were no commercial textbooks that fit what she was trying to do, so she wrote her own.

Since then, schools across Mexico, as well as Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador now use her textbooks. Al Jazeera made a documentary about her as part of their Rebel Educator series. Twice she was a finalist for Global Teacher of the Year. Just before the pandemic hit, she was appointed to unesco’s International Commission on the Futures of Education, a small group that includes writers, activists, professors (including Professor Fernando Reimers, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’88), anthropologists, entrepreneurs, and country presidents. (When UNESCO first reached out to her, she thought it was a scam and almost didn’t respond back to them.)

And it all started 23 years ago with an idea and, as she says, some naivete.

“In retrospect, it was crazy. Most people I know who have opened schools have done it ‘the right way,’ if such a thing exists,” Guerra says. “They were experienced teachers, or they even ran schools as principals, before jumping out to create a new one. They could do better because they knew better. I did not have that advantage. I had so much to learn myself. But in a way, that was also a blessing because I also had much less to ‘unlearn.’ …I said before that I became a teacher accidentally, but that is only partly accurate. Indeed, I was not expecting my life to take the path of education. But once I found myself there, it was my decision to stay. The discovery of a passion for teaching was the accident. To embrace the teaching profession was a choice.”

Read more about her work: elisaguerra.net/english/

SEEKER: Cynthia Hagan, Ed.M.’22

“I’ve lived here for 35 years and have witnessed the impact of poverty and the opioid crisis on our communities,” she says, “both on current realities and hopes for the future.”

Initially, when she first applied to Harvard, she thought she’d create a children’s program using puppets, inspired, in part, by Sesame Street , but after taking a few classes, Hagan’s ideas on how to help children in her state evolved.

“I became fascinated with the concept of designing for joy as introduced to us in the course What Learning Designers Do,” taught by Senior Lecturer Joe Blatt, she says. “Joy is an often-overlooked ingredient for learning.” The power of story also began to stick.

After creating a class project called Adventure Box, focused on increasing third-grade reading levels for children experiencing homelessness, Hagan’s idea for Book Joy emerged.

Research shows that children who are not proficient in reading by the third grade, when they transition from learning to read to reading to learn, are four times more likely to drop out of high school, and six times as likely to be incarcerated as an adult.

“I knew that the overall thirdgrade reading levels of children experiencing poverty in rural Appalachia were significantly lagging,” she says. “It just seemed like a logical move to modify Adventure Box to meet the needs of this population.”

She decided to focus first on McDowell County, West Virginia, once one of the largest coal producing areas in the world, where the child poverty rate in 2019 was a staggering 48.6%.

Hagan’s idea with Book Joy is simple but potentially life altering for the young children they began targeting starting this past September: give each incoming kindergarten student a curated box filled with high-quality books (printed and audio) based on interest and reading level, plus fun related activities to conceptualize the reading experience, and then follow up with new boxes quarterly (December, March, June) until third grade. The goal is to significantly increase third-grade reading proficiency.

For the launch this fall, Book Joy partnered with Scholastic to get discounted books and with Random House for free books. McDowell’s assistant superintendent/federal programs manager has been actively involved. Twice a year, Book Joy will conduct assessments with the students, their parents, and their teachers, to see how each box is working, and then tweak the content. They’ll also use feedback to improve on future boxes and teachers can use assessments to provide individualized intervention, as needed.

“When their interests, reading levels, or personal circumstances change,” says Hagan, “so does the contents of their box.”

Another goal for Book Joy, beyond improving third-grade reading proficiency for children in one of the poorest districts in Hagan’s state, is something fundamental to this former librarian: to bring joy to reading and learning, hence the name, Book Joy.

“Each box is truly a gift created just for them. No two boxes will be alike because no two children are alike,” she says. “And we are designing these boxes from an edutainment perspective, putting as much focus on eliciting joy as we do in choosing the best aligned reading material. We want every design element of the box, from the moment the children lay eyes on it to the emptying of every item, to elicit joy.”

Discover how you can help: givebookjoy.org

SEEKER: Ben Mackey, Ed.M.’13

In 2020, the district unanimously passed the Environmental & Climate Resolution, a massive overhaul of how schools in the Dallas Independent School District approach climate change. It includes reviewing and revising current policies across all schools and setting goals for reducing the district’s environmental footprint, while also keeping an eye on spending.

Mackey, a former math teacher and principal, says that it was young people in the district who really got the ball rolling when it came to making sure the district was thinking about its impact on the environment and then making a plan for change — something few districts are doing.

“The genesis of this resolution and the work really started with students,” he says. “When I took office in 2019, there was a small but mighty group of students who had been coming and attending every board meeting and sharing their perspectives and imploring the school board to make strides in its sustainability work. I was able to work with these students to get this resolution drafted and passed by the school board.”

What passed is a 10-year plan to drastically improve the district’s sustainability practices, including some steps that have already been taken, including switching energy plans and contracting for 100% renewable energy, which is expected to save the district $1 million a year on top of the energy benefits. By 2027, all plates, utensils, and trash bags will be 100% compostable.

Longer term, the district has applied for a federal grant to pilot 25 electric busses and will begin moving away from gas-powered maintenance equipment. It will limit synthetic fertilizer. The district also created a set of policies that say any new school built or existing school remodeled must include LEED silver certified standards. Another goal is to plant more trees to combat the “heat island” effect that schools that are primarily blacktop experience.

“One area that stuck out to our community group and administration as they were formulating the recommendation is how the increase in tree canopy cover can combat carbon emissions, improve learning environments, and serve to decrease energy usage,” he says. “We’re aiming to increase canopy cover at all campuses to at least 30% and we’re working with a number of phenomenal partner organizations to get this started, including the Texas Trees Foundation and the Cool Schools Parks initiatives.”

Mackey, who is the executive director of a statewide education nonprofit called Texas Impact Network(in addition to being on the school board), says his advice to other districts that want to reduce their school’s climate footprint is to get buy-in across the district — and just get started.

“Dallas ISD’s process started with students at our board meetings, speaking every single month, about the need and importance for this to happen. These students reached out to trustees and school staff and continued to come forward with both a charge and ideas for what success looks like,” he says. “The hardest part is often to get it off the ground and I’d encourage all who care about this to call your school board trustees and be a consistent and sensible voice who will share their mind and provide concrete solutions to make this work happen.”

Sign up for his monthly newsletters: benfordisd.com

SEEKER: Michael Ángel Vázquez, Ed.M.’19, current Ph.D. student

That’s why he’s trying to make the graduate years, at least for Ed School students, less stressful.

“I just went through this huge burst of depression my first year, my master’s year,” he says, “and I realized that I wasn’t the only one that was going through that.”

Part of the problem, says Vázquez, a former teacher in the Navajo Nation, is that while universities often offer great resources, many students don’t know where to turn for help or don’t even think they should ask for help.

“There’s so much pressure to feel like you know everything and not admit when you don’t,” he says.

Vázquez decided to create a comprehensive student-to-student guidebook, based on resources he knew about and those shared by other students. This “labor of love,” as he calls it, includes everything from where to find books and readings to how to save money, including where to grocery shop, how to sign up for MassHealth, how to apply for snap benefits, and how to sell items to other students through the Harvard Grad Market. He has a section on job hunting. The mental health section offers tips for finding therapists, wellness options at Harvard, ways to combat vitamin D deficiencies, and advice for advocating for yourself. Other documents include ways to prep for graduation, must-have lists for living in a colder climate, and a link to local tenants’ rights.

“I just felt like it was important to do whatever was possible for the next group of students to have a safe, happy experience, because, ultimately, learning should be fun, should be exciting,” he says. Endemic to being back in school, with all of the pressure, “it’s very common for that fun and excitement of learning” to take a back seat. “I don’t want that be the case. This guidebook is just one way to mitigate that a little bit and make it more fun and exciting for people.”

None of this support and concern for the well-being of other students surprises Vázquez’s professors, who point out that he has been one of the most active students since he got to Harvard. He’s been especially in-tune with first-gen students (he’s first gen, starting with attending the University of Southern California) and for students of color, both at the Ed School and at the college, where he’s a tutor at Adams House. He’s also been a teaching fellow for ethnic studies classes at the Ed School since 2019 and will now help teach ethnic studies to undergraduates at Harvard starting this fall. He hopes creating and sharing his guide helps all of the students he’s around.

“As a student and as somebody who is a teaching fellow and who has worked in different organizing groups on campus and off campus, I see that grad school and organizing are often very stressful,” he says. “I really want to drill that it’s OK to not know something and that learning is shared, which is why I did this. There were things I didn’t know at first. I want to share that knowledge with others, and I want it to be community-built. When you admit you don’t know something, that’s when you truly learn something.”

SEEKER: Grace Kossia, Ed.M.’17

“Anytime one of my friends unconsciously has a math moment, I always yell out, ‘You’re a mathematician!’” she says. “Too many people are walking through this life convinced that they could never be good at math. Math isn’t meant to be something we’re good at — it’s simply something we do, and when mistakes happen, we learn.”

It’s this philosophy that she and her coworkers bring to their edtech nonprofit based in Brooklyn, New York, playfully called Almost Fun, which last year helped 1.5 million middle and high school students with free online math lessons.

“The title ‘Almost Fun’ winks at the way students perk up when they engage with our resources and find unexpected joy while learning math,” she says. “We value being real with our students, and part of that is understanding that math can be a hard pill to swallow and that schoolwork may not be the number one thing students are going to want to do. However, with the right approach, we can curate experiences that make math learning ‘almost fun’ and something to look forward to for even the least confident learners.”

The backbone of their approach includes explaining concepts using easy-to-understand examples, rather than through clinical, mathematical definitions. Their distributive property lesson, for example, relates expanding and factoring an expression to opening and closing an umbrella. Their functions lesson uses a vending machine to explain how functions represent the relationship between inputs and outputs. Another lesson compares absolute value to the overall power of a superhero or villain.

Kossia says their site is meant to complement existing online sites like Khan Academy, which she says has been a trailblazer in edtech that serves many students. But as helpful as Khan is, some students still need more help — or just a different approach.

“There is still a critical number of students who struggle with high levels of math anxiety and low math confidence, which limits their ability to take full advantage of the support online resources like Khan offer,” she says. “At Almost Fun, we want to position ourselves as a complement to these existing resources by using creative math analogies to explain foundational math concepts and bridge the gaps in students’ math confidence and motivation, so that they can better benefit from the support other resources offer.”

Kossia remembers the gaps she struggled to fill after she immigrated to the United States from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the time, she was good at math, and decided to major in mechanical engineering in college. She had a hard time.

“I quickly realized that I had many gaps in my understanding of math and physics, which were essential skills I needed in this journey,” she says. “This chipped away at my confidence, but I was determined not to give up. I wanted to prove to myself and other people like me, especially Black women, that it could be done.” Later, when she worked as a physics teacher, her struggles helped her relate to students who were anxious about physics and pushed her to design creative lessons that focused on learning by doing, as opposed to learning by memorizing.

“At Almost Fun, I do the same thing but with math as the primary focus,” she says. “We believe math is more than just sets of memorized steps; it’s a way of describing relationships between things in our world.”

Access resources and lesson plans: almostfun.org

SEEKER: Shaina Lu, Ed.M.’17

“Learning about gentrification is unavoidable in placebased learning in a place like Chinatown,” Lu says. “However, it could be kind of a drag to spend your fourth-grade summer learning about gentrification.”

So Lu, an artist and former media arts teacher in Boston Public Schools, decided to make learning about this heavy topic more interesting: she created a graphic novel.

“ Noodle and Bao was my response to that feeling. I wanted to write and draw a story that elementary kids would devour and love — There’s a cat selling food in a cart! Neighborhood kids dress up and infiltrate a snobby restaurant! — but would also pay homage to some of these inspirational histories and present-day struggles they were learning about,” she says. While the novel isn’t specifically set in Boston’s Chinatown — it’s set in a fictional Town — Lu says it’s inspired by the many residents, activists, and community members of Boston’s Chinatown that she has met and worked with over the years — people who “have done so much exciting work that is more than comic book-worthy.”

Set to publish in the fall of 2024 by HarperCollins, Noodle and Bao also explores historical events from Boston’s Chinatown, most notably a fight for the land that now houses the community center where Lu worked and where elderly residents passionately voiced their displeasure to hotel developers at a meeting.

Lu says the graphic novel is just one example of something that has been important to her for many years: the intersection of art, education, and activism. Another example is a creative placemaking project she recently worked on in Chinatown with a local student in partnership with a local resident.

“The resident, youth, and I painted a community mural that featured [the resident’s] personal lens on the history of Chinatown,” she says. “The mural was painted on a condemned building on a border of Chinatown that is elslowly being eroded away by the neighboring district. It’s hard to parse out which separate part was ‘art’ or ‘activism,’ or ‘education,’ so I feel like they’re interwoven.”

Although she’s interested in teaching, Lu says classrooms are tricky places. “There’s an inherent power structure with the teacher as the fountain of knowledge and students as recipients of that.” Instead, “I’m interested in disrupting the capitalist status quo of education with ‘winners and losers’ as described by activist- philosopher Grace Lee Boggs in her 1970 essay, Education: The Great Obsession .”

She’s not interested, though, in disrupting the system on her own. “I hope to be, alongside others, building a new system, where people’s needs and interests and social responsibility define their learning, rather than their ability to produce,” she says. “There’s actually so much incredible person- centered education out there, both in and out of schools. I’ve worked with teachers who engaged students with civics project-based learning about gentrification, youth workers who have helped young people organize community gardens for their neighborhoods, and more.”

Learn about her art: shainadoesart.com

SEEKER: Justis Lopez, Current Ed.L.D. student

“I hold near to me that there are ancestors that wanted to study, but didn’t get the chance to,” he says. “There are relatives that wanted to pursue their dreams, but they put food on the table instead so that I could pursue mine, and for that I am eternally grateful and full of joy.”

It’s this gratitude and happiness for life that Lopez, a DJ known as DJ Faro (for the Spanish word, lightkeeper), is bringing to his time at the Ed School and to Project Happyvism, the culturally responsive nonprofit he started with his friend, Ryan Parker, a youth empowerment teacher and activist, that is rooted in hip hop and is a combination of happiness + activism.

“Project Happyvism is a feeling, a philosophy, and a movement that centers joy and love as a radical form of activism,” he says, meaning the commitment to loving yourself and those around you unconditionally.

“The organization embraces the beauty and need for joy,” he says, “and emphasizes the fact that maintaining happiness about who you are and what you think, say, and do in a world that consistently goes against the grain of your identity is a form of activism in itself, hence: happyvism.”

The project started from a song and video that Lopez and Parker wrote and produced and has since expanded to include helping others write songs (what they call “joy anthems”) in their recording studio, publishing a children’s book, Happyvism: A Story About Choosing Joy , and working with K–12 districts on related curriculum. They also started Joy Lab, a community gathering space in Manchester, Connecticut, where Lopez grew up, that offers yoga, wellness and equity workshops, and book readings. He plans on starting a Joy Lab at the Ed School during his time here.

“I’m just trying to create the spaces I wish I had for myself growing up,” Lopez says. “Spaces that center healing, hope, and hip hop.”

Although this is his first year as a student at the Ed School, Lopez has been involved with the school in the past, including as an organizer, MC, and DJ at the Alumni of Color Conference, thanks to Lecturer Christina Villarreal, Ed.M.’05, who later convinced him that getting into Harvard was a possibility. He also attended the Hip Hop Experience Lab conference run by Lecturer Aysha Upchurch, Ed.M.’15.

Previously, Lopez was a high school social studies teacher in Connecticut and created a hip hop class and afterschool program in the Bronx. He worked in the Hartford public schools as a climate, culture, and equity strategist, and was an adjunct professor at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. One day, he’d like to reach even higher and become the secretary of education for the United States.

“Policy is created by people and it’s important to have people in positions of leadership that understand the experiences of the students and educators they serve,” he says. “An important factor of that being a classroom teacher. When you have taught in the classroom you understand the human-centered perspective that is needed in education that goes beyond any policy. Of the last 11 U.S. secretaries of education, only three have been classroom teachers. Secretary Cardona makes the fourth. I want to build upon the human-centered approach he has brought to the role.”

Find your joy and watch their music video: projecthappyvism.com

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Seven Solutions for Education Inequality

Giving compass' take:.

•  Jermeelah Martin shares seven solutions that can reduce and help to eliminate education inequality in the United States.
• What role are you ready to take on to address education inequality? What does education inequality look like in your community?
• Read about comprehensive strategies for promoting educational equity .

What is Giving Compass?

We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us .

Systemic issues in funding drives education inequality and has detrimental effects primarily on low-income Black and Brown students. These students receive lower quality of education which is reflected through less qualified teachers,not enough books, technologies and special support like counselors and disability services. The lack of access to fair, quality education creates the broader income and wealth gaps in the U.S. Black and brown students face more hurdles to going to college and will be three times more likely to experience poverty as a American with only a highschool degree than an American with a college degree. Income inequality worsens the opportunity for building wealth for Black and Brown families because home and asset ownership will be more difficult to attain.

• Concretely, the first solution would be to reduce class distinctions among students by doing away with the property tax as a primary funding source. This is a significant driver for education inequality because low-income students, by default, will receive less. Instead, the state government should create more significant initiatives and budgets for equitable funding.
• Stop the expansion of charter and private schools as it is not affordable for all students and creates segregation.
• Deprioritize test based funding because it discriminates against disadvantaged students.
• Support teachers financially, as in offering higher salaries and benefits for teachers to improve retention.
• Invest more resources for support in low-income, underfunded schools such as, increased special education specialists and counselors.
• Dismantle the school to prison pipeline for students by adopting more restorative justice efforts and fewer funds for cops in schools. This will create more funds for education justice initiatives and work to end the over policing of minority students.
• More broadly, supporting efforts to dismantle the influence of capitalism in our social sector and supporting an economy that taxes the wealthy at a higher rate will allow for adequate support and funding of public sectors like public education and support for low-income families.

Read the full article about solutions for education inequality  by Jermeelah Martin at United for a Fair Economy.

More Articles

Our education funding system is broken. we can fix it., learning policy institute, nov 21, 2022, the funding gap between charter schools and traditional public schools, may 22, 2019.

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current events conversation

What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education

An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math. Teenagers told us what’s working and what’s not in the American education system.

By The Learning Network

Earlier this month, the Program for International Student Assessment announced that the performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000 . Other recent studies revealed that two-thirds of American children were not proficient readers , and that the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening.

We asked students to weigh in on these findings and to tell us their suggestions for how they would improve the American education system.

Our prompt received nearly 300 comments. This was clearly a subject that many teenagers were passionate about. They offered a variety of suggestions on how they felt schools could be improved to better teach and prepare students for life after graduation.

While we usually highlight three of our most popular writing prompts in our Current Events Conversation , this week we are only rounding up comments for this one prompt so we can honor the many students who wrote in.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

Put less pressure on students.

One of the biggest flaws in the American education system is the amount of pressure that students have on them to do well in school, so they can get into a good college. Because students have this kind of pressure on them they purely focus on doing well rather than actually learning and taking something valuable away from what they are being taught.

— Jordan Brodsky, Danvers, MA

As a Freshman and someone who has a tough home life, I can agree that this is one of the main causes as to why I do poorly on some things in school. I have been frustrated about a lot that I am expected to learn in school because they expect us to learn so much information in such little time that we end up forgetting about half of it anyway. The expectations that I wish that my teachers and school have of me is that I am only human and that I make mistakes. Don’t make me feel even worse than I already am with telling me my low test scores and how poorly I’m doing in classes.

— Stephanie Cueva, King Of Prussia, PA

I stay up well after midnight every night working on homework because it is insanely difficult to balance school life, social life, and extracurriculars while making time for family traditions. While I don’t feel like making school easier is the one true solution to the stress students are placed under, I do feel like a transition to a year-round schedule would be a step in the right direction. That way, teachers won’t be pressured into stuffing a large amount of content into a small amount of time, and students won’t feel pressured to keep up with ungodly pacing.

— Jacob Jarrett, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

In my school, we don’t have the best things, there are holes in the walls, mice, and cockroaches everywhere. We also have a lot of stress so there is rarely time for us to study and prepare for our tests because we constantly have work to do and there isn’t time for us to relax and do the things that we enjoy. We sleep late and can’t ever focus, but yet that’s our fault and that we are doing something wrong. School has become a place where we just do work, stress, and repeat but there has been nothing changed. We can’t learn what we need to learn because we are constantly occupied with unnecessary work that just pulls us back.

— Theodore Loshi, Masterman School

As a student of an American educational center let me tell you, it is horrible. The books are out dated, the bathrooms are hideous, stress is ever prevalent, homework seems never ending, and worst of all, the seemingly impossible feat of balancing school life, social life, and family life is abominable. The only way you could fix it would be to lessen the load dumped on students and give us a break.

— Henry Alley, Hoggard High School, Wilmington NC

Use less technology in the classroom (…or more).

People my age have smaller vocabularies, and if they don’t know a word, they just quickly look it up online instead of learning and internalizing it. The same goes for facts and figures in other subjects; don’t know who someone was in history class? Just look ‘em up and read their bio. Don’t know how to balance a chemical equation? The internet knows. Can’t solve a math problem by hand? Just sneak out the phone calculator.

My largest grievance with technology and learning has more to do with the social and psychological aspects, though. We’ve decreased ability to meaningfully communicate, and we want everything — things, experiences, gratification — delivered to us at Amazon Prime speed. Interactions and experiences have become cheap and 2D because we see life through a screen.

— Grace Robertson, Hoggard High School Wilmington, NC

Kids now a days are always on technology because they are heavily dependent on it- for the purpose of entertainment and education. Instead of pondering or thinking for ourselves, our first instinct is to google and search for the answers without giving it any thought. This is a major factor in why I think American students tests scores haven’t been improving because no one wants to take time and think about questions, instead they want to find answers as fast as they can just so they can get the assignment/ project over with.

— Ema Thorakkal, Glenbard West HS IL

There needs to be a healthier balance between pen and paper work and internet work and that balance may not even be 50:50. I personally find myself growing as a student more when I am writing down my assignments and planning out my day on paper instead of relying on my phone for it. Students now are being taught from preschool about technology and that is damaging their growth and reading ability. In my opinion as well as many of my peers, a computer can never beat a book in terms of comprehension.

— Ethan, Pinkey, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Learning needs to be more interesting. Not many people like to study from their textbooks because there’s not much to interact with. I think that instead of studying from textbooks, more interactive activities should be used instead. Videos, websites, games, whatever might interest students more. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use textbooks, I’m just saying that we should have a combination of both textbooks and technology to make learning more interesting in order for students to learn more.

— Vivina Dong, J. R. Masterman

Prepare students for real life.

At this point, it’s not even the grades I’m worried about. It feels like once we’ve graduated high school, we’ll be sent out into the world clueless and unprepared. I know many college students who have no idea what they’re doing, as though they left home to become an adult but don’t actually know how to be one.

The most I’ve gotten out of school so far was my Civics & Economics class, which hardly even touched what I’d actually need to know for the real world. I barely understand credit and they expect me to be perfectly fine living alone a year from now. We need to learn about real life, things that can actually benefit us. An art student isn’t going to use Biology and Trigonometry in life. Exams just seem so pointless in the long run. Why do we have to dedicate our high school lives studying equations we’ll never use? Why do exams focusing on pointless topics end up determining our entire future?

— Eliana D, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

I think that the American education system can be improved my allowing students to choose the classes that they wish to take or classes that are beneficial for their future. Students aren’t really learning things that can help them in the future such as basic reading and math.

— Skye Williams, Sarasota, Florida

I am frustrated about what I’m supposed to learn in school. Most of the time, I feel like what I’m learning will not help me in life. I am also frustrated about how my teachers teach me and what they expect from me. Often, teachers will give me information and expect me to memorize it for a test without teaching me any real application.

— Bella Perrotta, Kent Roosevelt High School

We divide school time as though the class itself is the appetizer and the homework is the main course. Students get into the habit of preparing exclusively for the homework, further separating the main ideas of school from the real world. At this point, homework is given out to prepare the students for … more homework, rather than helping students apply their knowledge to the real world.

— Daniel Capobianco, Danvers High School

Eliminate standardized tests.

Standardized testing should honestly be another word for stress. I know that I stress over every standardized test I have taken and so have most of my peers. I mean they are scary, it’s like when you take these tests you bring your No. 2 pencil and an impending fail.

— Brennan Stabler, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Personally, for me I think standardized tests have a negative impact on my education, taking test does not actually test my knowledge — instead it forces me to memorize facts that I will soon forget.

— Aleena Khan, Glenbard West HS Glen Ellyn, IL

Teachers will revolve their whole days on teaching a student how to do well on a standardized test, one that could potentially impact the final score a student receives. That is not learning. That is learning how to memorize and become a robot that regurgitates answers instead of explaining “Why?” or “How?” that answer was found. If we spent more time in school learning the answers to those types of questions, we would become a nation where students are humans instead of a number.

— Carter Osborn, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

In private school, students have smaller class sizes and more resources for field trips, computers, books, and lab equipment. They also get more “hand holding” to guarantee success, because parents who pay tuition expect results. In public school, the learning is up to you. You have to figure stuff out yourself, solve problems, and advocate for yourself. If you fail, nobody cares. It takes grit to do well. None of this is reflected in a standardized test score.

— William Hudson, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Give teachers more money and support.

I have always been told “Don’t be a teacher, they don’t get paid hardly anything.” or “How do you expect to live off of a teachers salary, don’t go into that profession.” As a young teen I am being told these things, the future generation of potential teachers are being constantly discouraged because of the money they would be getting paid. Education in Americans problems are very complicated, and there is not one big solution that can fix all of them at once, but little by little we can create a change.

— Lilly Smiley, Hoggard High School

We cannot expect our grades to improve when we give teachers a handicap with poor wages and low supplies. It doesn’t allow teachers to unleash their full potential for educating students. Alas, our government makes teachers work with their hands tied. No wonder so many teachers are quitting their jobs for better careers. Teachers will shape the rest of their students’ lives. But as of now, they can only do the bare minimum.

— Jeffery Austin, Hoggard High School

The answer to solving the American education crisis is simple. We need to put education back in the hands of the teachers. The politicians and the government needs to step back and let the people who actually know what they are doing and have spent a lifetime doing it decide how to teach. We wouldn’t let a lawyer perform heart surgery or construction workers do our taxes, so why let the people who win popularity contests run our education systems?

— Anders Olsen, Hoggard High School, Wilmington NC

Make lessons more engaging.

I’m someone who struggles when all the teacher does is say, “Go to page X” and asks you to read it. Simply reading something isn’t as effective for me as a teacher making it interactive, maybe giving a project out or something similar. A textbook doesn’t answer all my questions, but a qualified teacher that takes their time does. When I’m challenged by something, I can always ask a good teacher and I can expect an answer that makes sense to me. But having a teacher that just brushes off questions doesn’t help me. I’ve heard of teachers where all they do is show the class movies. At first, that sounds amazing, but you don’t learn anything that can benefit you on a test.

— Michael Huang, JR Masterman

I’ve struggled in many classes, as of right now it’s government. What is making this class difficult is that my teacher doesn’t really teach us anything, all he does is shows us videos and give us papers that we have to look through a textbook to find. The problem with this is that not everyone has this sort of learning style. Then it doesn’t help that the papers we do, we never go over so we don’t even know if the answers are right.

— S Weatherford, Kent Roosevelt, OH

The classes in which I succeed in most are the ones where the teachers are very funny. I find that I struggle more in classes where the teachers are very strict. I think this is because I love laughing. Two of my favorite teachers are very lenient and willing to follow the classes train of thought.

— Jonah Smith Posner, J.R. Masterman

Create better learning environments.

Whenever they are introduced to school at a young age, they are convinced by others that school is the last place they should want to be. Making school a more welcoming place for students could better help them be attentive and also be more open minded when walking down the halls of their own school, and eventually improve their test scores as well as their attitude while at school.

— Hart P., Bryant High School

Students today feel voiceless because they are punished when they criticize the school system and this is a problem because this allows the school to block out criticism that can be positive leaving it no room to grow. I hope that in the near future students can voice their opinion and one day change the school system for the better.

— Nico Spadavecchia, Glenbard West Highschool Glen Ellyn IL

The big thing that I have struggled with is the class sizes due to overcrowding. It has made it harder to be able to get individual help and be taught so I completely understand what was going on. Especially in math it builds on itself so if you don’t understand the first thing you learn your going to be very lost down the road. I would go to my math teacher in the morning and there would be 12 other kids there.

— Skyla Madison, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

The biggest issue facing our education system is our children’s lack of motivation. People don’t want to learn. Children hate school. We despise homework. We dislike studying. One of the largest indicators of a child’s success academically is whether or not they meet a third grade reading level by the third grade, but children are never encouraged to want to learn. There are a lot of potential remedies for the education system. Paying teachers more, giving schools more funding, removing distractions from the classroom. All of those things are good, but, at the end of the day, the solution is to fundamentally change the way in which we operate.

Support students’ families.

I say one of the biggest problems is the support of families and teachers. I have heard many success stories, and a common element of this story is the unwavering support from their family, teachers, supervisors, etc. Many people need support to be pushed to their full potential, because some people do not have the will power to do it on their own. So, if students lived in an environment where education was supported and encouraged; than their children would be more interested in improving and gaining more success in school, than enacting in other time wasting hobbies that will not help their future education.

— Melanie, Danvers

De-emphasize grades.

I wish that tests were graded based on how much effort you put it and not the grade itself. This would help students with stress and anxiety about tests and it would cause students to put more effort into their work. Anxiety around school has become such a dilemma that students are taking their own life from the stress around schoolwork. You are told that if you don’t make straight A’s your life is over and you won’t have a successful future.

— Lilah Pate, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

I personally think that there are many things wrong with the American education system. Everyone is so worried about grades and test scores. People believe that those are the only thing that represents a student. If you get a bad grade on something you start believing that you’re a bad student. GPA doesn’t measure a students’ intelligence or ability to learn. At young ages students stop wanting to come to school and learn. Standardized testing starts and students start to lose their creativity.

— Andrew Gonthier, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Praise for great teachers

Currently, I’m in a math class that changed my opinion of math. Math class just used to be a “meh” for me. But now, my teacher teachers in a way that is so educational and at the same time very amusing and phenomenal. I am proud to be in such a class and with such a teacher. She has changed the way I think about math it has definitely improve my math skills. Now, whenever I have math, I am so excited to learn new things!

— Paulie Sobol, J.R Masterman

At the moment, the one class that I really feel supported in is math. My math teachers Mrs. Siu and Ms. Kamiya are very encouraging of mistakes and always are willing to help me when I am struggling. We do lots of classwork and discussions and we have access to amazing online programs and technology. My teacher uses Software called OneNote and she does all the class notes on OneNote so that we can review the class material at home. Ms. Kamiya is very patient and is great at explaining things. Because they are so accepting of mistakes and confusion it makes me feel very comfortable and I am doing very well in math.

— Jayden Vance, J.R. Masterman

One of the classes that made learning easier for me was sixth-grade math. My teacher allowed us to talk to each other while we worked on math problems. Talking to the other students in my class helped me learn a lot quicker. We also didn’t work out of a textbook. I feel like it is harder for me to understand something if I just read it out of a textbook. Seventh-grade math also makes learning a lot easier for me. Just like in sixth-grade math, we get to talk to others while solving a problem. I like that when we don’t understand a question, our teacher walks us through it and helps us solve it.

— Grace Moan, J R Masterman

My 2nd grade class made learning easy because of the way my teacher would teach us. My teacher would give us a song we had to remember to learn nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc. which helped me remember their definitions until I could remember it without the song. She had little key things that helped us learn math because we all wanted to be on a harder key than each other. She also sang us our spelling words, and then the selling of that word from the song would help me remember it.

— Brycinea Stratton, J.R. Masterman

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What Will It Take to Fix Public Education?

The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? Yale Insights talked with former secretary of education John King, now president and CEO of the Education Trust, about the challenges that remain, and the impact of the Trump Administration.

• John B. King President and CEO, The Education Trust

This interview was conducted at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit , hosted by Yale SOM’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute on January 30, 2018.

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush traveled to Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio, to sign the No Child Left Behind Act , a bipartisan bill (Senator Edward Kennedy was a co-sponsor) requiring, among other things, that states test students for proficiency in reading and math and track their progress. Schools that failed to reach their goals would be overhauled or even shut down.

“No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance,” Bush said. “[W]hen we find poor performance, a school will be given time and incentives and resources to correct their problems.… If, however, schools don’t perform, if, however, given the new resources, focused resources, they are unable to solve the problem of not educating their children, there must be real consequences.”

Did No Child Left Behind make a difference? In 2015, Monty Neil of the anti-standardized testing group FairTest argued that while students made progress after the law was passed, it was slower than in the period before the law . And the No Child Left Behind was the focus of criticism for increasing federal control over schools and an emphasis on standardized testing. Its successor, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, shifted power back to the states.

President Barack Obama had his own signature education law: the grant program Race to the Top, originally part of the 2009 stimulus package, which offered funds to states that undertook various reforms, including expanding charter schools, adopting the Common Core curriculum standards, and reforming teacher evaluation.

One study showed that Race to the Top had a dramatic effect on state practices : even states that didn’t receive the grants adopted reforms. But another said that the actual impact on outcomes were limited —and that there were overly high expectations given the scope of the reforms. “Heightened pressure on districts to produce impossible gains from an overly narrow policy agenda has made implementation difficult and often counterproductive,” wrote Elaine Weiss.

Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? And how will the Trump Administration’s policies alter the trajectory? Yale Insights talked with John King, the secretary of education in the latter years of the Obama administration, who is now president and CEO of the nonprofit Education Trust .

Q: The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Do you think we’re getting closer to a consensus on the systematic changes that are needed in education?

Well, I’d say we’ve made progress in some important areas over the last couple of decades. We have highest graduation from high school we’ve ever had as a country. Over the last eight years, we had a million African-American and Latino students go on to college. S0 there are signs of progress.

That said, I’m very worried about the current moment. I think there’s a lack of a clear vision from the current administration, the Trump administration, about what direction education should head. And to the extent that they have an articulate vision, I think it’s actually counter to the interests of low-income students and students of color: a dismantling of federal protection of civil rights, a backing-away from the federal commitment to provide aid for students to go to higher education, and undermining of the public commitment to public schools.

That’s a departure. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve had a bipartisan consensus, whether it was in the Bush administration or the Obama administration, that the job of the Department of Education was to advance education equity and to protect student civil rights. The current administration is walking away from both of those things.

I don’t see that as a partisan issue. That’s about this administration and their priorities. Among the first things they did was to reduce civil rights protections for transgender students, to withdraw civil rights protections for victims of sexual assault on higher education campuses. They proposed a budget that cuts funding for students to go to higher education, eliminates all federal support for teacher professional development, and eliminates federal funding for after-school and summer programs.

Q: Some aspects of education reform have focused on improving performance in traditional public schools and others prioritize options like charter schools and private school vouchers. Do you think both of those are needed?

I distinguish between different types of school choice. The vast majority of kids are in traditional, district public schools. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to strengthen those schools and ensure their success.

Then I think there is an important role that high-quality public charters can play if there’s rigorous oversight. And if you think about, say, Massachusetts or New York, there’s a high bar to get a charter, there’s rigorous supervision of the academics and operations of the schools and a willingness to close schools that are low-performing. So for me, those high-quality public charters can contribute as a laboratory for innovation and work in partnership with the broader traditional system.

There’s something very different going on in a place like Michigan, where you’ve got a proliferation of low-quality, for-profit charters run by for-profit companies. Their poorly regulated schools are allowed to continue operating that are doing a terrible job, that are taking advantage of students and families. That’s not what we need. And my view is that states that have those kinds of weak charter laws need to change them and move toward something like Massachusetts where there’s a high bar and meaningful accountability for charters.

And then there’s a whole other category of vouchers, which is using public money for students to go to private school, and to my mind, that is a mistake. We ought to have public dollars going to public schools with public accountability.

Q: When you have a state like Michigan in which you’ve got a lot of very poor charter schools, does that hurt a particular type of student more than others?

It has a disproportionate negative effect on low-income students and students of color. Many of those schools are concentrated in high-needs communities and, unfortunately, it’s really presenting a false choice to parents, a mirage, if you will, because they’re told, “Oh, come to this school, it will be different” or, “it will be better,” and actually it’s not. Ed Trust has an office in Michigan, where we have spent a long time trying to make the case to elected officials that they need to strengthen their charter law and charter accountability.

Unfortunately, there’s a very high level of spending by the for-profit charter industry and their supporters on political campaigns. And so far there’s not been a lot of traction to try to strengthen the charter oversight in Michigan. We see that problem in other states around the country, but at the same time we know there are models that work. We know that in Massachusetts, where there’s a high standard for charters, their Boston charters are some of the highest performing charters in the country, getting great outcomes for high-need students. So it’s possible to do chartering well, but it requires thoughtful leadership from governors and legislators.

Q: What’s your view on how students should be evaluated?

Well, I think we have to have a holistic view. The goal ought to be to prepare students for success in college, in careers, and as citizens. So we want students to have the core academic skills, like English and math, but they also need the knowledge that you gain from science and social studies. They need the experiences that they have in art and music and physical education and health. They need that well-rounded education to be prepared to succeed at what’s next after high school. They also need to be prepared to be critical readers, critical thinkers, to debate ideas with their fellow citizens, to advocate for their ideas in a thoughtful, constructive way—all the tools that you need to be a good citizen.

In order to evaluate all of that, you need multiple measures; you can’t just look at test scores. Obviously you want students to gain reading and math skills, but you also need to look at what courses they’re taking. Are they taking a wide range of courses that will prepare them for success? Do they have access to things like AP courses or International Baccalaureate courses that will prepare them for college-level work? Do they acquire socio-emotional skills? Are they able to navigate when they have a conflict with a peer? Are they able to work collaboratively with peers to solve problems?

So you want to look at grades; you want to look at teachers’ perceptions of students. You want to look at the work that they’re doing in class: is it rigorous, is it really preparing them for life after high school? And one of the challenges in education is, to have those kinds of multiple measures, you need very thoughtful leadership at every level—at state level, district level, and at the school level.

Q: How should we be evaluating teachers?

I started out as a high school social studies teacher, and I thought a lot about this question of what’s the right evaluation method. I think the key is this: you want, as a teacher, to get feedback on how you’re doing and what’s happening in your classroom. Too often teaching can feel very isolated, where it’s just you and the students. It’s important to have systems in place where a mentor teacher, a master teacher, a principal, a department chair is in the classroom observing and giving feedback to teachers and having a continuous conversation about how to improve teaching. That should be a part of an evaluation system.

But so too should be how students are doing, whether or not students are making progress. I know folks worry that that could be reduced to just looking at test scores. I think that would be a mistake, but we ought to ask, if you’re a seventh-grade math teacher, if students are making progress in seventh-grade math.

Now, as we look at that, we have to take into consideration the skills the students brought with them to the classroom, the challenges they face outside of the classroom. But I think what you see in schools that are succeeding is that they have a thoughtful, multiple-measures approach to giving teachers feedback on how they’re doing and see it as a tool for continuous improvement to ensure that everybody is constantly learning.

Q: Do you think the core issue in improving schools is funding? Or are there separate systemic issues that need to be solved?

It varies a lot state to state, but the Education Trust has done extensive analysis of school spending, and what we see is that on average, districts serving low-income students are spending significantly less than more affluent districts across the country, about $1,200 less per student. And in some states, that can be $3,000 less, $5,000 less, $10,000 less per student for the highest-needs kids. We also see a gap around funding for communities that serve large numbers of students of color. Actually, the average gap nationally is larger for districts serving large numbers of students of color—it’s about $2,000 less than those districts that serve fewer students of color.

So we do have a gap in terms of resources coming in, but it’s not just about money; it’s also how you use the money. And we know that, sadly, in many places, the dollars aren’t getting to the highest needs, even within a district. And then once they get to the school level, the question is, are they being spent on teachers and teacher professional development, and things that are going to serve students directly, or are they being spent on central office needs that actually aren’t serving students? So we’ve got to make sure they have more resources for the highest-needs kids, but we’ve also got to make sure that the resources are well-used.

Q: Does it make it significantly harder that so much of the decisions are made on the local level or the state level when you’re trying to create a change across the country?

It’s certainly a challenge. You want to try to balance local leadership with common goals. And you want, as a country, to be able to say, look, you may choose different books to read in class, you may choose different experiments to do in science, but we need all students to have the fundamental skills that they’ll need for success in college and careers and we ought to all be able to agree that all schools should be focused on those skills. Even that can be politically challenging.

We also know that from a funding standpoint, having funding decided mostly on the local level can actually create greater inequality, particularly when you’re relying on local property taxes. You’ll have a very wealthy community that’s spending dramatically more than a neighboring community that has many more low-income families. One of the ways to get around that is to have the state or the federal government account for a larger share of funding so that you can have an equalizing role. That was the original goal of Title I funding at the federal level—to try to get resources to the highest-needs kids.

The other challenge we see is around race and income diversity or isolation. And sadly, in many states, Connecticut included, you have very sharp divisions along race and class lines between districts and so kids may go to school and never see someone different from them. That is a significant problem. We know there are places that are trying to solve that. Hartford, Connecticut, for example, has, because of a court decision, a very extensive effort to get kids from Hartford to go out to suburban schools and suburban kids to come to Hartford schools. And they’ve designed programs that will attract folks across community lines, programs that focus on Montessori or art or early college programs. We can do better, but we need leadership around that.

Q: Are you seeing concrete results from programs like Hartford?

What we know is that low-income students who have the opportunity to go to schools that serve a mixed-income population do better academically. And we also know that all students in schools that are socioeconomically and racially diverse gain additional skills outside the purely academic skills around how to work with peers, cross-racial understanding, empathy.

So, yes, we are seeing those results. The sad thing is, it’s not fast enough; it’s not happening at enough places. We in the Obama administration had proposed a $120 million grant program to school diversity initiatives around the country. We couldn’t get Congress to fund it. We had a small planning grant program that we created at the Education Department that was one of the first things the Trump administration undid when they came into office. So we’re going backwards at the federal level, but there’s a lot of energy around school diversity initiatives at the community level. And that’s where we’re seeing progress around the country.

Q: Do you think the education system should aim to send as many people to college as possible? Should we think of it as being necessary for everyone or should we find ways to prepare students for a wider range of careers?

What’s clear is that everybody going into the 21st-century economy needs some level of post-secondary training. That may be a four-year degree. It could also be a two-year community college degree, or it could be some meaningful career credential that actually leads to a job that provides a family-sustaining wage. But there are very, very few jobs that are going to provide that family-sustaining wage that don’t require some level of post-secondary training. My view is, we have a public responsibility to make sure folks have access to those post-secondary training opportunities. That’s why the Pell Grant program is so important, because it provides funding for low-income students to be able to pursue higher education.

We also need to do a better job in the connection between high school and post-secondary opportunities. A lot of times students leave high school unclear on what they’re going to do and where they should go. We can do a much better job having students have college experiences while in high school and then prepare them to transition into meaningful post-secondary career training.

Q: What’s the one policy change you would made to help students of color and students in poverty, if you had to choose one thing?

There’s no one single silver bullet for sure, but one of the highest return investments we know we can make as a country is in early learning. We know, for example, that high quality pre-K can have an eight-to-one, nine-to-one return on investment. President Obama proposed something called Preschool for All, which would have gotten us toward universal access to quality pre-K for low- and middle-income four-year olds. That’s something we ought to do because if we can give kids a good foundation, that puts them in a better place to succeed in K-12 and to go on to college.

But I have a long list of policy changes I would want to make. I think, fundamentally, we haven’t made that commitment as a country, at the federal level, state level, or local level, to ensuring equitable opportunity for low-income students and students of color. And if we made that commitment, then there’s a series of policy changes that would flow from that.

Interviewed and edited by Ben Mattison.

Visit edtrust.org to learn more about the Education Trust. Follow John B. King Jr. on Twitter: @JohnBKing .

• Public Policy

Lack of Education: Addressing the Problems and Exploring Solutions

Education is a fundamental right and a key driver of individual and societal progress. However, the persistent lack of access to quality education remains a significant global challenge. This article examines the problems associated with a lack of education and explores potential solutions to bridge the gap and ensure equitable educational opportunities for all.

Problems Caused by Lack of Education

Limited economic opportunities.

Lack of education often leads to limited economic opportunities for individuals and communities. Without the necessary knowledge and skills, individuals may struggle to find stable employment or engage in higher-paying jobs. This perpetuates the cycle of poverty and hinders socio-economic development.

Social Inequality and Marginalization

A lack of education can contribute to social inequality and marginalization. Individuals who are denied access to education may face discrimination, exclusion, and limited social mobility. This can lead to a widening gap between the privileged and the disadvantaged, exacerbating social divisions within society.

Reduced Health and Well-being

Education plays a vital role in promoting health and well-being. Lack of education can limit individuals’ understanding of health issues, preventive measures, and access to healthcare services. This can result in poor health outcomes, higher mortality rates, and a lack of awareness regarding essential health practices.

Solutions to Address the Lack of Education

Increased investment in education.

One of the primary solutions to tackle the lack of education is increased investment in educational infrastructure, resources, and teacher training. Governments, international organizations, and communities must allocate sufficient funding and resources to ensure the availability of quality schools, qualified teachers, and necessary learning materials.

Promoting Universal Access and Enrollment

Efforts should be made to promote universal access to education and ensure that all children, regardless of their gender, socio-economic background, or geographical location, have the opportunity to attend school. This requires removing barriers such as discriminatory policies, addressing cultural norms, providing scholarships and incentives, and implementing inclusive educational systems.

Enhancing Teacher Training and Support

Teachers play a pivotal role in delivering quality education. Enhancing teacher training programs, providing ongoing professional development opportunities, and improving working conditions are essential steps to attract and retain skilled educators. Well-trained and motivated teachers can create engaging learning environments and inspire students to achieve their full potential.

Leveraging Technology for Learning

Technology can be a powerful tool to overcome barriers to education. By integrating digital learning platforms, online resources, and distance learning programs, educational opportunities can reach remote and underserved areas. Access to computers, internet connectivity, and relevant digital content can enhance educational experiences and provide self-paced learning opportunities.

Addressing Socio-economic Factors

To address the lack of education comprehensively, it is crucial to tackle underlying socio-economic factors. Poverty, gender inequality, child labor, and conflicts are among the challenges that hinder access to education. Governments and stakeholders must implement policies and initiatives that address these systemic issues, ensuring that education is prioritized and barriers are dismantled.

FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions)

Why is lack of education a problem?

Lack of education is a problem because it limits economic opportunities, contributes to social inequality and marginalization, and reduces health and well-being outcomes. It hinders personal and societal development, perpetuates poverty, and widens social divisions.

How can we promote education for all?

To promote education for all, it is essential to increase investment in education, promote universal access and enrollment, enhance teacher training and support, leverage technology for learning, and address underlying socio-economic factors that hinder access to education.

What role does government play in addressing the lack of education?

Governments play a critical role in addressing the lack of education by allocating sufficient funding to education, implementing inclusive policies, removing barriers to access, and ensuring the availability of quality educational infrastructure and resources. They also need to prioritize teacher training and support and address socio-economic factors that hinder access to education.

How can technology help bridge the education gap?

Technology can bridge the education gap by providing access to digital learning platforms, online resources, and distance learning programs. It can overcome geographical barriers, reach underserved areas, and provide self-paced learning opportunities. Technology also enhances educational experiences and prepares students for the digital world.

Why is quality teacher training important in addressing the lack of education?

Quality teacher training is crucial because teachers are at the forefront of delivering education. Well-trained teachers create engaging learning environments, inspire students, and ensure the delivery of quality education. Ongoing professional development opportunities and improved working conditions help attract and retain skilled educators.

The lack of education poses significant challenges to individuals and societies worldwide. By investing in education, promoting universal access, enhancing teacher training, leveraging technology, and addressing socio-economic factors, we can work towards bridging the educational gap and ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities to learn and thrive. Education is not only a right but also a catalyst for positive change, empowering individuals and fostering inclusive and prosperous societies.

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The Education Crisis: Being in School Is Not the Same as Learning

First grade students in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province are learning the alphabet through child-friendly flash cards. Their learning materials help educators teach through interactive and engaging activities and are provided free of charge through a student’s first learning backpack. © World Bank 

THE NAME OF THE DOG IS PUPPY. This seems like a simple sentence. But did you know that in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, three out of four third grade students do not understand it? The world is facing a learning crisis . Worldwide, hundreds of millions of children reach young adulthood without even the most basic skills like calculating the correct change from a transaction, reading a doctor’s instructions, or understanding a bus schedule—let alone building a fulfilling career or educating their children. Education is at the center of building human capital. The latest World Bank research shows that the productivity of 56 percent of the world’s children will be less than half of what it could be if they enjoyed complete education and full health. For individuals, education raises self-esteem and furthers opportunities for employment and earnings. And for a country, it helps strengthen institutions within societies, drives long-term economic growth, reduces poverty, and spurs innovation.

One of the most interesting, large scale educational technology efforts is being led by EkStep , a philanthropic effort in India. EkStep created an open digital infrastructure which provides access to learning opportunities for 200 million children, as well as professional development opportunities for 12 million teachers and 4.5 million school leaders. Both teachers and children are accessing content which ranges from teaching materials, explanatory videos, interactive content, stories, practice worksheets, and formative assessments. By monitoring which content is used most frequently—and most beneficially—informed decisions can be made around future content.

In the Dominican Republic, a World Bank supported pilot study shows how adaptive technologies can generate great interest among 21st century students and present a path to supporting the learning and teaching of future generations. Yudeisy, a sixth grader participating in the study, says that what she likes doing the most during the day is watching videos and tutorials on her computer and cell phone. Taking childhood curiosity as a starting point, the study aimed to channel it towards math learning in a way that interests Yudeisy and her classmates.

Yudeisy, along with her classmates in a public elementary school in Santo Domingo, is part of a four-month pilot to reinforce mathematics using software that adapts to the math level of each student. © World Bank

Adaptive technology was used to evaluate students’ initial learning level to then walk them through math exercises in a dynamic, personalized way, based on artificial intelligence and what the student is ready to learn. After three months, students with the lowest initial performance achieved substantial improvements. This shows the potential of technology to increase learning outcomes, especially among students lagging behind their peers. In a field that is developing at dizzying speeds, innovative solutions to educational challenges are springing up everywhere. Our challenge is to make technology a driver of equity and inclusion and not a source of greater inequality of opportunity. We are working with partners worldwide to support the effective and appropriate use of educational technologies to strengthen learning.

When schools and educations systems are managed well, learning happens

Successful education reforms require good policy design, strong political commitment, and effective implementation capacity . Of course, this is extremely challenging. Many countries struggle to make efficient use of resources and very often increased education spending does not translate into more learning and improved human capital. Overcoming such challenges involves working at all levels of the system.

At the central level, ministries of education need to attract the best experts to design and implement evidence-based and country-specific programs. District or regional offices need the capacity and the tools to monitor learning and support schools. At the school level, principals need to be trained and prepared to manage and lead schools, from planning the use of resources to supervising and nurturing their teachers. However difficult, change is possible. Supported by the World Bank, public schools across Punjab in Pakistan have been part of major reforms over the past few years to address these challenges. Through improved school-level accountability by monitoring and limiting teacher and student absenteeism, and the introduction of a merit-based teacher recruitment system, where only the most talented and motivated teachers were selected, they were able to increase enrollment and retention of students and significantly improve the quality of education. "The government schools have become very good now, even better than private ones," said Mr. Ahmed, a local villager.

The World Bank, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the UK’s Department for International Development, is developing the Global Education Policy Dashboard . This new initiative will provide governments with a system for monitoring how their education systems are functioning, from learning data to policy plans, so they are better able to make timely and evidence-based decisions.

Education reform: The long game is worth it

In fact, it will take a generation to realize the full benefits of high-quality teachers, the effective use of technology, improved management of education systems, and engaged and prepared learners. However, global experience shows us that countries that have rapidly accelerated development and prosperity all share the common characteristic of taking education seriously and investing appropriately. As we mark the first-ever International Day of Education on January 24, we must do all we can to equip our youth with the skills to keep learning, adapt to changing realities, and thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy and a rapidly changing world of work.

The schools of the future are being built today. These are schools where all teachers have the right competencies and motivation, where technology empowers them to deliver quality learning, and where all students learn fundamental skills, including socio-emotional, and digital skills. These schools are safe and affordable to everyone and are places where children and young people learn with joy, rigor, and purpose. Governments, teachers, parents, and the international community must do their homework to realize the promise of education for all students, in every village, in every city, and in every country. 

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Education and inequality in 2021: how to change the system

Research Associate at the University of Geneva's department of Education and Psychology; Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva's La Grande Boissière, Université de Genève

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Since its earliest traces, at least 5,000 years ago , formal education – meaning an education centred on literacy and numeracy – has always been highly selective. Ancient Egyptian priest schools and schools for scribes in Sumeria were only open to the children of the clergy or future monarchs.

Later on, the wealthy would use private tutors, such as the Sophists of Athens (500 - 400 BCE). Ancient Greek schools, such as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum , were restricted to a small elite group. Formal education was reserved for male children who were wealthy, able, and privileged.

Through time, even after learning societies began to flourish, it was still an education for some and not for everybody.

In the 1800s Black people were denied access to quality education in the United States. In European colonies, education was used to strip people of their cultural heritage and relegate them to a future of menial labour.

Education has always been less accessible to women than men. Even today, over 130 million girls are still out of school. Although the difference between girls and boys is lessening, the disparity disadvantaging girls persists . From a socioeconomic perspective, in many countries, private schools continue to grow alongside compulsory state schools, offering a different style of education, sometimes at a very high price.

Today, progress to attain the dream of universal access to education is slow. UNESCO’s Education for All and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 , which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, are still far from materialising: roughly 260 million children are still not in school . The COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation worse: remote learning is inaccessible to roughly 500 million students . Estimates are that over 200 million children will still be out of school by 2030 .

In my study “Education and Elitism” , the overarching question that runs through the book is about the future of education worldwide: What are the prospects for the future? Are we facing an even more enclaved, pauperised majority while a tiny minority become more powerful and wealthy?

Certain paths could open up. On the one hand, places in selective institutions could become even more difficult to access while private education strips ahead of national standards. On the other hand, changes might make education more inclusive: this would include scholarships, cheaper private education, more robust state systems and deep assessment reform.

Prospects for the future

Scholarship programmes: These allow the brightest and poorest access to transformative learning ecosystems . However, this contributes to a brain drain and does not develop the local educational sector , particularly in Africa.

Cheaper private education: A movement of accessible private schools is growing . This allows more children to access some of the value-added features of such systems – more curriculum flexibility, smaller class sizes, more individual student tracking. However, there are reports that this is widening social divides , as the public system isn’t improving fast enough to keep up.

More robust state systems: UNESCO estimates that it would cost a total of US$340 billion each year to achieve universal pre-primary, primary, and secondary education in low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2030. The average annual per-student spending for quality primary education in a low-income country is predicted to be US$197 in 2030. This creates an estimated annual gap of US$39 billion between 2015 and 2030. Financing this gap calls for action from private sector donors, philanthropists, and international financial institutions.

Online learning: The COVID-19 lockdown has brought inequalities to the surface. However, the rise of online learning worldwide has been phenomenal. This opens up the potential to widen access to learning socioeconomically and, if delivered by skilled facilitators, academically . There is a problem, though: online instruction lacks the emotional quantum that face-to-face learning creates. Because of this, motivation levels and persistence tend to be low in online learning environments . And importantly, in many countries, many students still don’t have access to the internet.

A way forward: reforming the system

Perhaps the most substantive movement to reduce inequalities would not be to accelerate access to a broken system but to reform the system itself .

It is time to look further than narrow academic metrics as the only way of describing young people’s competences. The whole educational system across high schools, in every country, needs to change dramatically. Assessment models should recognise and nurture more varied and multiple competences, in particular, attitudes, skills and types of knowledge beyond those concentrated in constructs that are favoured by socioeconomic background, such as literacy and numeracy .

Read more: Education needs a refocus so that all learners reach their full potential

Until universities and employers look beyond traditional metrics, it will be difficult to break a circuit that favours, for the large part, middle class, socially and ethnically privileged candidates.

To truly break away from a millennia of elitist, selective systems , the approach needs to move from pure academics to a credit system that captures many more stories of learning. This new credit system should be known as a passport, meaning students have stamped it with the various competences such as lifelong learning and self-agency that they have developed throughout their learning (in an out of school), allowing them to be recognised on numerous different fronts.

A coalition of schools from every continent is working on this project, now seeking universities to sit around the table in order to bring this work to its conclusion. This would mean co-designing an elegant, life worthy transcript to allow more access to more children based on more expansive criteria.

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Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

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Recognizing and Overcoming Inequity in Education

About the author, sylvia schmelkes.

Sylvia Schmelkes is Provost of the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

22 January 2020 Introduction

I nequity is perhaps the most serious problem in education worldwide. It has multiple causes, and its consequences include differences in access to schooling, retention and, more importantly, learning. Globally, these differences correlate with the level of development of various countries and regions. In individual States, access to school is tied to, among other things, students' overall well-being, their social origins and cultural backgrounds, the language their families speak, whether or not they work outside of the home and, in some countries, their sex. Although the world has made progress in both absolute and relative numbers of enrolled students, the differences between the richest and the poorest, as well as those living in rural and urban areas, have not diminished. 1

These correlations do not occur naturally. They are the result of the lack of policies that consider equity in education as a principal vehicle for achieving more just societies. The pandemic has exacerbated these differences mainly due to the fact that technology, which is the means of access to distance schooling, presents one more layer of inequality, among many others.

The dimension of educational inequity

Around the world, 258 million, or 17 per cent of the world’s children, adolescents and youth, are out of school. The proportion is much larger in developing countries: 31 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and 21 per cent in Central Asia, vs. 3 per cent in Europe and North America. 2  Learning, which is the purpose of schooling, fares even worse. For example, it would take 15-year-old Brazilian students 75 years, at their current rate of improvement, to reach wealthier countries’ average scores in math, and more than 260 years in reading. 3 Within countries, learning results, as measured through standardized tests, are almost always much lower for those living in poverty. In Mexico, for example, 80 per cent of indigenous children at the end of primary school don’t achieve basic levels in reading and math, scoring far below the average for primary school students. 4

The causes of educational inequity

There are many explanations for educational inequity. In my view, the most important ones are the following:

• Equity and equality are not the same thing. Equality means providing the same resources to everyone. Equity signifies giving more to those most in need. Countries with greater inequity in education results are also those in which governments distribute resources according to the political pressure they experience in providing education. Such pressures come from families in which the parents attended school, that reside in urban areas, belong to cultural majorities and who have a clear appreciation of the benefits of education. Much less pressure comes from rural areas and indigenous populations, or from impoverished urban areas. In these countries, fewer resources, including infrastructure, equipment, teachers, supervision and funding, are allocated to the disadvantaged, the poor and cultural minorities.
• Teachers are key agents for learning. Their training is crucial.  When insufficient priority is given to either initial or in-service teacher training, or to both, one can expect learning deficits. Teachers in poorer areas tend to have less training and to receive less in-service support.
• Most countries are very diverse. When a curriculum is overloaded and is the same for everyone, some students, generally those from rural areas, cultural minorities or living in poverty find little meaning in what is taught. When the language of instruction is different from their native tongue, students learn much less and drop out of school earlier.
• Disadvantaged students frequently encounter unfriendly or overtly offensive attitudes from both teachers and classmates. Such attitudes are derived from prejudices, stereotypes, outright racism and sexism. Students in hostile environments are affected in their disposition to learn, and many drop out early.

It doesn’t have to be like this

When left to inertial decision-making, education systems seem to be doomed to reproduce social and economic inequity. The commitment of both governments and societies to equity in education is both necessary and possible. There are several examples of more equitable educational systems in the world, and there are many subnational examples of successful policies fostering equity in education.

Why is equity in education important?

Education is a basic human right. More than that, it is an enabling right in the sense that, when respected, allows for the fulfillment of other human rights. Education has proven to affect general well-being, productivity, social capital, responsible citizenship and sustainable behaviour. Its equitable distribution allows for the creation of permeable societies and equity. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. One hundred eighty-four countries are committed to achieving this goal over the next decade. 5  The process of walking this road together has begun and requires impetus to continue, especially now that we must face the devastating consequences of a long-lasting pandemic. Further progress is crucial for humanity.

Notes  1 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , Inclusive Education. All Means All , Global Education Monitoring Report 2020 (Paris, 2020), p.8. Available at https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2020/inclusion . 2 Ibid., p. 4, 7. 3 World Bank Group, World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education's Promise (Washington, DC, 2018), p. 3. Available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018 .  4 Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación, "La educación obligatoria en México", Informe 2018 (Ciudad de México, 2018), p. 72. Available online at https://www.inee.edu.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/P1I243.pdf . 5 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , “Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4” (2015), p. 23. Available at  https://iite.unesco.org/publications/education-2030-incheon-declaration-framework-action-towards-inclusive-equitable-quality-education-lifelong-learning/   The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.   

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42 Causes, Effects & Solutions for a Lack of Education

“ Lack of education, old age, bad health or discrimination – these are causes of poverty, and the way to attack it is to go to the root.”

Robert Kennedy, Politician

Lack of Education: Causes, Effects & Solutions

A lack of education can be defined as a state where people have a below-average level of common knowledge about basic things that they would urgently need in their daily life.

For instance, this could include basic knowledge in math, writing, spelling, etc.

Especially in poor developing countries, educational inequality is quite prevalent.

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A lack of education can have severe adverse effects.

In this article, the causes, effects and solutions for a lack of education are examined in detail.

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Causes for a lack of education, homelessness, substance abuse, bad company, cultural factors, natural disasters, insufficient social aid, insufficient educational infrastructure, teacher gaps, low qualification levels of teachers, lack of learning materials, gender discrimination, disabilities.

Poverty can be regarded as a big cause of a lack of education and for educational inequality.

Children from poor families often do not have access to proper education since it is simply too expensive for their families to send them to school.

Moreover, these children also often have to work instead of attending school since they have to contribute to the family income in order to support their family members financially.

Orphans are at greater risk to suffer from a lack of education compared to “normal” kids since they often have no one who takes care of them.

This could lead to financial trouble since it is quite hard to earn enough money to cover your expenses while you are still a kid.

In turn, this may result in a state where these children have to work quite a lot to earn enough money to survive.

Thus, these orphans will have no time to attend school since they need all their time to work.

If you grow up in a family with homeless parents, chances are that you will not get proper education since your parents will not have sufficient money to send you to school and they might not even care too much since they often have other problems like drug addiction and you may therefore be at great risk to be neglected.

Thus, growing up in a family with homeless parents may also contribute to educational inequality.

Parenting is a big factor when it comes to a lack of education.

The more your parents care about you, the less likely it is that you end up with a low level of education.

However, in some cases, parents just do not know better.

They may themselves have a low level of education and think that this education level is enough for a happy life.

Therefore, they may lead you on the same education path which may lead to a lack of education for you.

The abuse of substances of all sorts can also contribute to a lack of education.

If you consume drugs on a regular basis, chances are that you become unreliable and you may also refrain from attending school too often.

Thus, substance abuse at a young age may also increase educational inequality since children who consume drugs will often prioritize substance consumption over school and their education levels are likely to suffer due to that.

If you hang out with family members or friends who are doing drugs or other illegal stuff, chances are that you get influenced by these people and they may eventually drag you down in life.

You may also start to consume substances or skip school which may translate into a lack of education in later stages.

Laziness may also be a factor when it comes to educational inequality.

Some people have a higher motivation to learn and develop themselves than others.

People who are not gifted with this drive to learn and progress may have a hard time in school since they may have no motivation to get good grades in order to be able to attend university later.

This may also lead to a serious lack of education if the will to learn is extremely limited.

In some cultures, it is also quite common that people often only get quite basic education.

These cultures often rely on certain beliefs and may not value advanced education enough to send their children to university or other educational institutions.

Religion can also play a big role in the level of education.

Religious families often live quite conservative, which often makes it hard for children to get proper education since the religious beliefs of parents may not be in line with the education goal.

This may be especially true for girls since they are often supposed to stay at home and to cook and do the household instead of getting proper education and start a career.

Conflicts can also be a big cause of a lack of education. In regions where conflicts are common, people simply feel that the protection of their life is more important than sending their kids to school.

Moreover, due to conflicts, many people have to leave their homes and migrate to other countries to save their life.

Thus, children who are suffering from these adverse conditions are likely not be able to get proper education due to conflicts.

Natural disasters may also play a role when it comes to a lack of education.

When regions get hit by natural disasters like tsunamis or other catastrophes, people living in these regions will suffer from vast destruction of public infrastructure.

They may also suffer from serious health issues due to these natural disasters.

Under these horrible conditions, it will be quite hard for children to get proper education since schools and other educational facilities may have been destroyed.

In many countries, there is a lack of or only insufficient social aid and welfare .

If people become unemployed, they may not get any financial subsidies from the government.

Imagine you have children and lose your job.

Now, you will likely not be able to afford the tuition fees for your kids anymore which may lead to a lack of education for your children.

In some regions, the overall educational infrastructure is quite bad.

This is especially true for rural areas.

People who live in these regions often have to bring their children to the next school.

However, many poor people do not even have a car.

This will likely lead to a lack of education for their children since these children may not be able to attend school simply due to the long distance.

Some regions may also suffer from a shortage of teachers.

In those regions, classes are often quite big and teachers will not be able to respond to every school kid individually.

This may in turn lead to educational inequality since some children learn faster than others.

Children who learn quite slow may be left behind and their overall education level may significantly suffer due to that.

Another issue related to a lack of education may be an insufficient qualification of teachers.

If teachers have no high level of education, chances are that school kids will also have a low level of education when they finish school since their teachers have simply not been able to teach them on a high level.

Especially in poor developing countries, children also often suffer from a lack of learning materials.

If children do not have the appropriate books or other facilities to learn, chances are that their level of education will suffer.

Although the tolerance towards women and girls who want to attend school has increased over the past decades, there are still many countries in which women are meant to stay at home and do the household instead of getting proper education and to work in a normal job.

This gender discrimination will lead to a lack of education for many girls since their families may not want them to attend school.

Children who suffer from disabilities, especially in poor countries, are likely to get only insufficient education since parents will often not have enough money to send all of their kids to school.

These parents will often choose a family member who has the best chances to succeed in school in order to secure the family income.

Thus, children with disabilities will rather stay at home instead of attending school.

Effects of Educational Inequality

Unemployment, illegal activities, social isolation, bad working conditions, insufficient health insurance, radicalization, poor housing conditions.

Many studies have shown that poverty and a lack of education are strongly positively correlated.

Since poor families may not be able to send their kids to school, these children may suffer from significant educational inequality.

However, not only is poverty a cause for a low level of education, it can also be an effect of insufficient education since a bad education will often translate into an increased probability for unemployment and low salaries.

A low level of education increases the risk of unemployment dramatically.

If you apply for a job, chances are that your education level will be screened by companies.

If you do not have a sufficiently high level of education, you will likely not get the job.

Moreover, if you have a low education level and become unemployed, you will also have a hard time to find another suitable job.

A low level of education may also increase the probability of drug addiction.

These people may not be aware of the consequences of drug abuse and may only recognize them when it is already too late.

Moreover, due to unemployment or other adverse events in their life, people with low levels of education may be at greater risk to consume drugs since they simply see no bright future for themselves and want to mask their bad feelings with the high of drugs.

Homelessness can also be a cause due to a lack of education.

If people lose their job and are not able to pay for their rent anymore, they may be at risk of becoming homeless.

Since the chances for unemployment increases with a low level of education, so does the probability of homelessness.

If people are not able to find a job due to their low level of education, chances are that these people are willing to engage in criminal actions in order to make their living.

Imagine you try hard to find a job but it simply doesn’t work out and you have to supply for your children.

It would be quite attractive to earn substantial money by engaging in criminal actions, wouldn’t it?

Since the probability to engage in criminal activities increases due to a low level of education, so does the chance to go to jail.

If you engage in illegal things, you will be caught sooner or later and may end up in prison.

Thus, educational inequality may also increase the chances to go to jail, especially for poor people.

A lack of education may also lead to social isolation since people who only have low levels of education may not be able to follow conversations or to take part in mentally demanding activities.

Therefore, they may lose social contacts and may end up in social isolation.

Moreover, since a lack of education may also translate into poverty, these people may also not be able to afford social activities which in turn may lead to social isolation .

Low levels of education also often imply a low salary since the wage for a job is often determined by demand and supply of skills.

If workers only have low skill levels, they are easily exploitable by companies which want to maximize profits and therefore will pay their workers only a quite low salary.

Since people with a low level of education often do not have many other job options, they may be exploited by firms and may suffer from quite bad working conditions.

This may include working quite long hours or working under insecure conditions.

A lack of education and the resulting low income may also often lead to insufficient health insurance.

Many people will simply not be able to afford health insurance due to their low salary.

In case of severe health issues, they may suffer from serious long-term consequential effects since they are often not able to afford proper medical treatment due to their lack of health insurance .

Educational inequality can also lead to significant dependence of all sorts.

If you only have a low level of education, chances are that you will be dependent on financial or other support in order to be able to carry out important tasks in your daily life.

Dependence in any form will in most cases not turn out favorable for the dependent person in life since they give away the leverage to other people which may have the power to treat the dependent persons quite bad.

People who only have low levels of education may also be easier to recruit for radical movements.

This is due to the fact that these people may not be able to identify the arguments made by fundamentalists as flawed and may therefore be willing to join these organizations, even if these arguments do not make sense at all from an objective perspective.

A lack of education may also contribute to poor housing conditions since it increases the risk of poverty .

Poor people may not be able to afford rent in a nice neighborhood and may live in bad neighborhoods which may lead to low quality of life and insecurity for these people.

Solutions for a Lack of Education

Better educational infrastructure, financial support for poor families, raise awareness on the importance of education, more tolerance regarding education, minimum wages, increase in quality regarding social security, improvements in health insurance, support for children from difficult family conditions, improve quality of teachers, close teacher gaps, improve access to education for girls and women.

Governments and municipalities should try to provide better educational infrastructure so that it is easier for the local population to attend school.

This means that it has to be assured that the next school is not many miles away but rather within walking distance so that also children of poor families who do not own a car can attend school on a regular basis.

Moreover, building an online course infrastructure may be another great way to improve the overall education levels of the general public.

It is also crucial to support poor families with financial subsidies so that their kids are able to attend school.

This is quite important to fight a lack of education since poverty is a main cause why children are not able to go to school.

By supporting poor families, educational inequality could be fought to a certain extent.

Many people might not even be aware of what a lack of education really means for their children.

Parents may believe that a basic education taught at home is sufficient to succeed in life since they do not know better.

However, with our technological progress, it is likely that education will be more important than ever to succeed in our nowadays job market.

It is also crucial that we change the mind of people in a way that they regard education as a valuable thing.

In some cultures, education is not regarded as important at all and some parents even do not want their kids to become educated since they fear that their kids will leave them if they give them too many options in life.

An indirect way to fight low education levels may be by setting or even increasing minimum wages.

The introduction of minimum wages may likely decrease the level of poverty, which may in turn translate into better chances for children to be able to attend school.

Better social security schemes are also crucial to fight a lack of education.

It has to be assured that everyone gets basic aid in case he or she becomes unemployed.

This should also include financial support for children to send them to school, even if their parents are unemployed.

By setting up more sophisticated social security schemes , the access of children to proper education could be improved.

Educational inequality could also be fought by introducing better health insurance schemes.

People who lack proper health insurance may be at great risk to suffer from severe long-term damages related to the absence of medical treatment in case of illness.

This in turn may lead to a lack of education for their children since these persons may not be able to work anymore and will therefore likely not be able to pay for the tuition fees for their children.

Children who experience violence at home may also be at greater risk to suffer from significant lacks of education since they may become mentally sick which may distract them to learn and progress.

Moreover, their parents may not even care at all about their children’s education which may further exacerbate the issue.

In order to improve the overall education levels, we also have to make sure that the quality of the teachers is sufficient.

If the education of teachers is quite low, chances are that also the education levels of school kids will suffer since these teachers will not be able to teach sufficiently advanced things.

In regions where teacher gaps are an issue, local authorities should try to recruit more teachers so that children get a better individual education which may improve their overall education level and therefore may mitigate the problem of educational inequality.

In countries and regions where girls and women are still discriminated against due to their gender, it is crucial to raise the awareness that girls are equally important compared to boys when it comes to the supply with proper education.

By doing so, the value systems in these regions may change and girls may get better access to educational facilities.

A lack of education is a big global problem.

Especially in poor countries, many children suffer from educational inequality, which may in turn lead to several severe issues when these children turn into grownups.

Therefore, it is crucial to fight the problem of a lack of education on a global scale.

By doing so, we can ensure a brighter future for many people worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_inequality

https://www.nber.org/papers/w8206

https://www.ucl-ioe-press.com/2019/10/14/tackling-educational-inequality/

About the author

My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.

As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.

After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.

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Silver bullets are hard to come by in the developing world. But this should not be discouraging.

Take the international education sector. While its horizon doesn’t promise any night-to-day revolutions premised on a succinct call to action, it is dotted with evidence that reveals a diverse array of options for improving learning and, thereby, tackling extreme poverty.

For donor organizations and their implementing partners, this is instructive. Direct, effective, and relatively simpler solutions to individual aspects of a larger problem can add up to more than the sum of their parts. This is precisely how diverse interventions in education can help tackle extreme poverty in developing countries. These seven independent approaches stand out to me as offering valid paths to important improvements in learning and life:

• Set simple, communicable standards —Standards are a vital mechanism of promoting accountability and high performance in education, and may matter more for poor communities than rich—rich communities are often able to “force” systems to provide them with a good standard of quality. Parents who are not aware of the level at which their child should be achieving may be satisfied with the education services a school is providing even as their child’s learning outcomes fall short. Education systems should set simple standards and, just as importantly, communicate these standards to parents so that they may better understand their child’s progress and hold schools accountable. Under the EdData project , for instance, USAID has facilitated the creation of reading benchmarks for the early grades in certain countries. (See for example the case of the Philippines ).
• Start curricula where children are —When it comes to establishing the right curriculum, sometimes too much ambition can be problematic. For instance, one official curriculum in a developing country sets a reading comprehension goal of second grade students being able to “construct the meaning of the text.” In this particular country, a large percentage of second graders cannot even read a single word. Such theoretically ambitious curricula sometimes reflect an upper middle class bias, and evidence suggests that they result in lower achievement. Curricula should instead set very specific standards that reflect where children are in their educational development, such as starting with the basics of reading. Some NGOs are able to do this without “dumbing down” the curriculum, by starting where children are, and then ramping up. Ministries should also be able to do so. Pratham, an organization dedicated to improving education for India’s poor, has carried out numerous interventions demonstrating that restructuring classes by learning level—instead of age—can produce large improvements in learning. Their successful “ Read India ” program is based on this principle.
• Fix the mess in the early years — Uganda’s “triple crisis” in the early grades--high rates of grade repetition, lack of early childhood development programs, and low literacy rates—weighs heavily on the country’s prospects. But the crisis is not isolated there; some 40 countries are affected. Some of the poorest developing countries report huge over-enrollment in the early grades and a big drop-off between first and second grades. This is not truly due to students dropping out, but to (often under-reported) grade repetition. As the chart below illustrates, many countries report grade enrollment rates that far exceed the population of grade-aged children in the country. A major part of the problem is lack of quality early childhood education and oral stimulation early on, which has contributed to, among other things, a crisis in early grade reading: about half of grade 2 children in Early Grade Reading Assessment programs cannot read any words. Fixing the problem promises far-reaching benefits—early cognitive development is the best predictor of later cognitive development, which is a good predictor of income. In Uganda, the government is working in conjunction with USAID on a National Action Plan for Child Well-Being that includes the goal of improving education in the early years.

• Improve both accountability and pedagogy —A slew of research carried out on development programs in poor areas shines light on two batches of effective interventions: accountability (e.g. merit pay, community influence over teachers’ rewards) and pedagogy (e.g. better books, better teaching, tighter programming and supervision). Accountability interventions by themselves are unlikely to sufficiently change behaviors and outcomes. Pedagogical interventions are unlikely to be scaled or sustained without accountability and supervision. Therefore, it is important that accountability and pedagogical improvements are both pursued. The two approaches are highly complementary from a strategic management perspective as well. As I explored in a recent co-authored paper , education systems in developing countries are typically in need of very large improvements in learning outcomes. Results of such significance are typically only achieved through direct pedagogical interventions, which are extremely expensive to take to scale. However, system-level changes—such as improved accountability—have the potential to improve teaching and learning on a national scale. For example, projects in Kenya are utilizing school monitoring systems to better track observations of instructional practice.
• Work on mother tongue —Providing instruction in little-used home languages is often considered too complicated: doing so requires more advanced logistics, coordination, creativity, teacher placement and support. But perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the poor is linguistic and related to early grade reading, and it has been demonstrated that vast improvements in reading outcomes can be achieved through instruction in mother tongue. As poignantly described by SIL , local languages have a critical role to play in achieving the biggest development goals on the horizon.
• Pay attention to finance and resources —Finance matters but the “how” may be more important than the “how much.” Increases in salary levels, for instance, generally do not lead to learning improvements. A World Bank assessment of government-funded schools in Malawi found almost no relationship between expenditure and results. Pro-poor financing that is tightly linked to results can help, but care must be taken to avoid perverse incentives such as teaching to the test. Differentiated support (e.g., more funding for the poor, or more investment in teacher support where results are lacking rather than in blanket professional development) would be a real innovation in many countries.
• Rethink systems —Increasingly, vertical interventions such as USAID’s Early Grade Reading programs have delivered impressive results. However, full systemization of education in the development context has proven elusive. Previous efforts to improve systems (in the 1980s and 1990s) were somewhat de-linked from learning outcomes, results measurement, and concrete use cases that could exemplify what the reforms can achieve. Now programs such as Early Grade Reading offer concrete proof of application and impact. Practitioners should look deeply at the concrete recent experiences and consider whether there is an applicable “bare-bones” or “sine qua non” systematic approach for meeting needs of the poor. The DFID-funded Research on Improving Systems of Education ( RISE ) program is a promising innovation.

Ideally, these interventions should be considered all at once, as part of systemic reforms. But there are versions or subsets of these systemic interventions that could yield benefits relatively quickly and would not be hard to take to scale, if political will exists.

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It is said. If you gave him a fish. It will be for that day. But if you made him learn about fishing. You will solve his hunger problem for whole life. This is the Education. And really it's a panacea for all the evils againest humanity.

In reply to Education is a Panacea solution for poverty reduction.. by Dr. R. S. Chauhan

Thanks for your comment. Education is about as close as humanity can come to a panacea. Warm regards.

In reply to panacea by Luis Crouch

Luis, you are as close to being a panacea for the world's ills that any member of humanity could be. I salute you on the Global Partnership for Education--may it enable all of us to reach more of our potential. Noel

In reply to Panaceas for humanity by Noel McGinn

Thanks, Noel. GPE does great work!

Im interested and would like you to assist the elementary school in my village in PNG.There is not enough support and the learning standard is very low here.

The lack of parental involvement in the education of children presents educators with a large issue in many countries. A marginalized parent, from an education standpoint, has not had any exposure to education (Hansman, 2006). Their children are sure to repeat the same behaviors because they do not have teaching and guidance in the home environment. This places a huge burden on teachers during the child's early education years. How realistic is it for the teachers to ensure that every child makes progress in first and second grade the first time they attend classes? Perhaps a strategy of using multiple teachers in the classroom would allow for teaching and formative assessment of each student to achieve the learning outcomes and place them on a path to timely progress.

Hansman, C. (2006). Low-income adult learners in higher education. In S.B. Merriam, B.C. Courtenay, & R.M. Cervero (Eds.), Global issues and adult education (pp. 399-411). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

In reply to Parental Involvement by Alan F.

Well, at the very least the first few grades should not be more overcrowded than the later grades. Part of the problem is that Grade 1 is used in lieu of school readiness programs, creating a big mix of ages in that grade, and many goals. Just sorting out the age heterogeneity would help. And at the very least having the same pupil-teacher ratio, of now lower, in the early grades. Incidentally, one of the most cost-effective things you can do in an education system is, probably, to put your best teachers (not necessarily the most knowledgeable about subjects, but the most caring and skillful) in the earlier grades. May be politically difficult but it makes a lot of pedagogical and efficiency sense.

In reply to parental by Luis Crouch

Thank you for you response. If the suggestions you made regarding age heterogeneity could be successful, how would the educational and political powers of the country implement new policies to aid the youngest children? If the powers can be shown that improving early education is relevant to child development, and facilitates better success in the latter education years, what are the barriers to change?

In reply to School Readiness by Alan F.

Well, I think there are two keys to this.

One is the traditional arguments regarding the benefits and the return on investment of investing in both the first few grades and so on. These are the usual Heckman arguments and other arguments.

My sense from experience and discussions with Ministries of Education and Ministries of Finance is that these arguments are perceived as a bit abstract.

So, two, is the demonstration that at least a good number of countries are in some sense already paying the cost of providing a better experience in pre-primary and the first few grades, because the current mess imposes either fiscal or educational costs. In a paper that I hope to get published soon, I make this argument. You are welcome to a copy of it if you write me at my e-mail address [email protected] . I also have a PPT where I make the argument in graphical form.

In my (admittedly limited) experience in getting countries to consider these issues, the second line of argument has worked better. But that is based on relatively limited experience.

Cheers and thanks for your interest.

I am heartily thankful to Global Partnership for Education for this in-depth research and initiation for the Education of marginalized section of the developing countries. the points that were raised and explained in the article titled as "7 actions to fight extreme poverty by improving education in the developing world" with valid references are the real requirement to solve the problem of illiteracy and poverty both. Parental Involvement, Set simple communicable standards, Improve both accountability and pedagogy, Rethink systems, Pay attention to finance and resources, Start curricula where children are, Work on mother tongue are the fundamental demands to the mission of SDGs by 2030. One more thing that I want to add is the Employment with the Education. we have to convert our schools into Educational workshops where the identified group will get education and employment both at the same time. we have to re-think and have to differentiate the educational policies for them.

In reply to Educational Workshops for the marginalized class of the society by Dr. Rupendra S…

Certainly linking education to the world of work is a trend that is worth paying attention to. Models used in some developed countries may have a role in developing countries, and vice versa. But I think this makes most sense for adolescents, say. Not sure it makes sense for the very few first grades. For adolescents, putting more schools in work, and putting more of work in the schools, seems to make sense. Programs such as Linked Learning, as implemented by ConnectEd, seem to be receiving good evaluations. Thanks for your interest.

As president of a philantropic women society, I would like to learn about possible ways to contribute and support your educacional programs in Panama.

In reply to Support for your programs in Panama by María Ana Antoniadis

Thanks for your interest. I am afraid I no longer work at GPE, and Panama may not be poor enough to qualify for GPE programs. However, the various initiatives to which I refer in my blog are documented and are not that difficult for a country such as Panama to adapt or at least use as inspiration. Good luck!

First of all thanks Luis

Education like, Look at the course like you are viewing it for the first time. Using the ‘student view’ options provided are useful for this as well.

Regards Katya

One of the many ways to get a child excited about learning is to approach it in a creative way. The Christian Children's Fund of Canada has 85 Creative Learning Centres operating in India thanks to donors that support 3,200 children. Learning through play, music and other creative methods makes learning fun. Watch this video to see how sponsor support is inspiring education through creativity. https://www.ccfcanada.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7…

After reading your complete post I really like all the steps and actions to fight extreme poverty by improving education in the developing world. Children in India are facing the basic challenges like shortages of teachers, books, and basic facilities, and insufficient public funds to cover education costs. I think your provided steps specially “Pay attention to finance and resources” and “Improve both accountability and pedagogy” are really helpful to fight extreme poverty and in development of country.

There are many good organizations specially Shareandserve.com which provides free education charities to rural areas. They also help to remove extreme poverty in India. So, Thanks for your thoughts on this subject.

Nice information that are provided in this article,Thanks for sharing this type of information.

Very interesting info for all the kids at westfield intermediate school. It is very useful. Including all the kids in my class -Ava Grace 6th grader at westfield intermediate school!!!

Dear Luis, Thank you for the article. The 7-actions highlighted are very useful, especially for developing countries. One of my best lines " finance matters but how may be more important than how much". Leaders in education in poor countries are quick to project lack of finance as a major challenge impeding the quality of education, but when they get the money, it ends up in the wrong direction.

Of the 7 best ways to fight poverty, language of instruction appears to continue haunting the Zambian education system where the movement from English to a familiar language of instruction appears not to solve the linguistic dilemma in the language of instruction in the education system. While use familiar languages of instruction in early grades is better than using English, familiar languages are equally not mother tongues further worsening the difficulties learners from diverse culture face in the classroom owing the the multiplicity of languages in the country. Thus, children in cosmopolitan cities where one familiar language has been adopted yet there are children from all over the country find it very difficult to understand instruction and be helped by their parents who are alien to the local languages in towns.

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3 ways to disrupt education and help bridge the skills gap 

Roughly 65% of school children today will end up working in jobs that don't exist yet. Image:  Unsplash.

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.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, future of work.

Listen to the article

• By 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines.
• Education systems, and the lives of millions of young people, are in danger of being left behind by this pace of change.
• Here are three key ways educators can prepare students for the future of work.

Alarmist headlines on the skills gap are incessant: 50% of all employees need reskilling by 2025; Digital skills emergency; Employers shift focus from education to skills; Don’t get left behind in a digital future!

As a technologist, I see the glaring skills mismatch every single day. As a parent, I am cautiously hopeful that our schools will help bridge this gap.

Last month I spoke to a group of 13-year-olds in my son’s school on the future of skills from a tech perspective. A LinkedIn post wrote about it garnered huge interest – I was asked these three questions: Do you have bitcoins? Are you a billionaire? Will robots replace humans? The questions reflected the pop culture image of the tech industry in Silicon Valley. But they also revealed the dire need to help an intensely curious, acutely aware and aspirational generation, bridge the gap between hype, fear and reality.

Have you read?

We asked young people about work and skills. here's what they told us, 6 things to know about the future of skills and workplace learning.

It got me thinking about how we guide this brilliant brigade waiting impatiently for us to lead them to the future. Are we doing our best to prepare them for the rapidly changing landscape? Are we helping them build the right skills to succeed in a largely unknown world?

These are critical and urgent questions that must be asked. I do not have all the answers, but I do wonder if we need a broad shift in mindset. Are we focused more on our achievements in history than the challenges of the future? We need to collectively question the existing approach in skill development to prepare for an unknown future.

The future is knocking at our doors

Let’s look at the scenario ahead. According to the Future of Jobs 2020 report by the World Economic Forum, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines by 2025, while 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms – that’s just over three years away.

The fact is that nearly half the jobs face potential automation, and 65% of children in school today will end up working in completely new job types that don't yet exist. Existing jobs may not go away but will certainly be different. For instance, banking will go almost entirely virtual, and core professions like medicine will exist but with an extensive technology filter.

Furthermore, 84% of employers are set to rapidly digitalize working processes; and 94% of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job. In fact, in what is being coined the “Upskilling Economy”, companies across the world are investing billions of dollars to reskill their workforce. Clearly, the future of work has already arrived for a large majority of workers.

Our education system is in danger of being left behind by this dizzying pace of change. If teenage students are wondering about cryptocurrency, should we be teaching them about blockchain? If they’re curious about robots, at what point should we open the doors to automation, artificial intelligence (AI), or machine learning?

The “what” and the “how”

To borrow a thought from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Curriculum (re)design now’s the time to dig deep into the “what” and the “how” questions for education. One important lesson that the pandemic taught us, is that our educational institutions and policy makers can move very quickly in response to a crisis. The question is, why wait for a crisis? There is no denying that we need change. It’s time to open our minds to the opportunities and challenges ahead and how the education system must respond to prepare students. I’d like to lay out three major shifts for a potential jumpstart.

1. Disrupt the legacy curriculum

This is not a simple one-step curriculum change, not an add-on subject in computer science, but an ongoing journey in transforming the processes, the experience, even the purpose – opening the doors wider to technology. This is not to undermine the need to focus on history or the arts.

These are undoubtedly valuable. In fact, it is fascinating to see that programmes like the International Baccalaureate offer a vast variety of options such as Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, Social & Cultural Anthropology, Ancient History & Classical Civilization, even languages such as Latin. I do not question the role these play in a student’s development. But, looking ahead, we need to balance this with an equally sharp focus on the future where digital literacy, data science and new-age technologies will play a key role in determining success. It is about making cloud and AI an intrinsic part of learning.

The argument is not so much about a scrimmage between subjects. It is about building skills for enquiry, analysis, and interpretation. It is about tech intensity, about investing in a horizontal layer of technology and allowing it to cut through the entire spectrum of the education journey. It is about reimagining the curriculum and reassessing foundational literacies and competencies for the future; moving beyond the 3Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic) to embracing the 5Cs – critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and coding.

2. Disrupt the role of the teacher

Our educators need to build the courage to lose control. To let go, to join in and embrace automation, robotics, and algorithms. Parents are the sandwich generation – born in a different era, we need a human touch and are apprehensive of algorithmic interpretations. But teachers need to lead the change in the classroom. To quote Professor Erica McWilliam, they need to move from being the “Sage on the Stage”; they even need to give up the being the “Guide on the Side” to become the “Meddler in the Middle” – a collaborative co-learner in the thick of the action.

We also need to break down the artificial boundaries within the curriculum and help find solutions to real-world problems – taking a leaf from the phenomenon-based learning approach adopted by Finland in its national school curriculum, which mandates a multidisciplinary module based on 21st-century skills.

3. Disrupt the pace

There is no time left for generational handovers. The pace of innovation and change in technology is furious. We see it all around us. Moore’s law has become redundant and as the famous futurist Ray Kurzweil said, “There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth.” And our kids are hungry for this change. Not surprisingly, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit report Driving the Skills Agenda , 58% of teachers agree that their students often have a more advanced understanding of technology than them. Our students are already in the fast lane. We need to join them there and help them develop the skills they need.

A need to reconfigure the future

We are responsible to create the framework for success in a future not yet known. As the OECD stated in The Future We Want , “In the era of digital transformation and with the advent of big data, digital literacy and data literacy are becoming increasingly essential.”

To address these essentials, we need a goal-based approach in a continuing journey – equipping education to reconfigure the future. This will demand fundamental shifts from control to engagement, from rigidity to agility, and from power to partnership. The first step, as a young student suggested to me, might be getting 50-year-old leaders to acknowledge that they don’t know it all.

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16.4 Issues and Problems in Education

Learning objectives.

• Describe how schooling in the United States helps perpetuate social inequality.
• Explain the difference between de jure segregation and de facto segregation.
• Summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of single-sex education.
• Describe the extent of school violence and the controversy over zero-tolerance policies.
• Discuss how and why social inequality in the larger society manifests itself in higher education.

The education system today faces many issues and problems of interest not just to educators and families but also to sociologists and other social scientists. We cannot discuss all of these issues here, but we will highlight some of the most interesting and important.

Schools and Inequality

Earlier we mentioned that schools differ greatly in their funding, their conditions, and other aspects. Noted author and education critic Jonathan Kozol refers to these differences as “savage inequalities,” to quote the title of one of his books (Kozol, 1991). Kozol’s concern over inequality in the schools stemmed from his experience as a young teacher in a public elementary school in a Boston inner-city neighborhood in the 1960s. Kozol was shocked to see that his school was literally falling apart. The physical plant was decrepit, with plaster falling off the walls and bathrooms and other facilities substandard. Classes were large, and the school was so overcrowded that Kozol’s fourth-grade class had to meet in an auditorium, which it shared with another class, the school choir, and, for a time, a group of students practicing for the Christmas play. Kozol’s observations led to the writing of his first award-winning book, Death at an Early Age (Kozol, 1967).

Jonathan Kozol has written movingly of “savage inequalities” in American schools arising from large differences in their funding and in the condition of their physical facilities.

Thomas Hawk – El Paso High School – CC BY-NC 2.0; Nitram242 – Detroit School – CC BY 2.0.

Kozol left this school after being fired for departing from the prescribed curriculum by teaching poems by Robert Frost and Langston Hughes to his fourth graders. He then taught in a wealthy school in one of Boston’s suburbs, where his class had only 21 students. The conditions he saw there were far superior to those in his inner-city Boston school. “The shock of going from one of the poorest schools to one of the wealthiest cannot be overstated,” he later wrote (Kozol, 1991, p. 2).

During the late 1980s, Kozol (1991) traveled around the country and systematically compared public schools in several cities’ inner-city neighborhoods to those in the cities’ suburbs. Everywhere he went, he found great discrepancies in school spending and in the quality of instruction. In schools in Camden, New Jersey, for example, spending per pupil was less than half the amount spent in the nearby, much wealthier town of Princeton. Chicago and New York City schools spent only about half the amount that some of the schools in nearby suburbs spent.

Learning From Other Societies

Successful Schooling in Denmark

Denmark’s model for schooling from the earliest years up through high school offers several important lessons for U.S. education. The Danish model reflects that nation’s strong belief that significant income inequality causes many problems and that it is the role of government to help the poorest members of society. This philosophy is seen in both the Danish approach to early childhood education and its approach to secondary schooling (Morrill, 2007).

In early childhood education, Denmark’s policies also reflect its recognition of the importance of child cognitive and emotional development during the first few years of life, as well as its recognition to take special steps to help children of families living in poverty. Accordingly, along with several other Nordic and Western European nations, Denmark provides preschool and day care education for all children. According to one Danish scholar, “intervention in day-care/pre-school is considered the best way to give children a good beginning in life, particularly socially endangered children. [T]he dominant view is that the earlier children develop academic skills and knowledge the better, as these skills will enable them to participate in society on equal terms with children of the same age” (Jensen, 2009, p. 6).

Once students start elementary school, they join a class of about 20 students. Rather than being tracked (grouped by ability), students are simply assigned to a class with other children from their neighborhood. The class remains with the same “class teacher” from grades 1 through 9; this teacher instructs them in Danish language and literature. Other teachers teach them subjects such as arithmetic/mathematics, music, social studies, and science. Because the “class teacher” is with the students for so many years, they get to know each other very well, and the teacher and each child’s parents also become very well acquainted. These rather close relationships help the teacher deal with any academic or behavioral problems that might occur. Because a class stays together for 9 years, the students develop close relationships with each other and a special sense of belonging to their class and to their school (Morrill, 2007).

The commitment to free or low-cost, high-quality early childhood education found in Denmark and many other Nordic and Western European nations is lacking in the United States, where parents who desire such education for their children usually must pay hundreds of dollars monthly. Many education scholars think the United States would do well to follow the example of these other nations in this regard. The interesting “class teacher” model in Denmark’s lower grades seems to provide several advantages that the United States should also consider. In both these respects, the United States may have much to learn from Denmark’s approach to how children should learn.

These numbers were reflected in other differences Kozol found when he visited city and suburban schools. In East St. Louis, Illinois, where most of the residents are poor and almost all are African American, schools had to shut down once because of sewage backups. The high school’s science labs were 30 to 50 years out of date when Kozol visited them; the biology lab had no dissecting kits. A history teacher had 110 students but only 26 textbooks, some of which were missing their first 100 pages. At one of the city’s junior high schools, many window frames lacked any glass, and the hallways were dark because light bulbs were missing or not working. Visitors could smell urinals 100 feet from the bathroom. When he visited an urban high school in New Jersey, Kozol found it had no showers for gym students, who had to wait 20 minutes to shoot one basketball because seven classes would use the school’s gym at the same time.

Contrast these schools with those Kozol visited in suburbs. A high school in a Chicago suburb had seven gyms and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Students there could take classes in seven foreign languages. A suburban New Jersey high school offered 14 AP courses, fencing, golf, ice hockey, and lacrosse, and the school district there had 10 music teachers and an extensive music program.

From his observations, Kozol concluded that the United States is shortchanging its children in poor rural and urban areas. As we saw in Chapter 8 “Social Stratification” , poor children start out in life with many strikes against them. The schools they attend compound their problems and help ensure that the American ideal of equal opportunity for all remains just that—an ideal—rather than reality. As Kozol (1991, p. 233) observed, “All our children ought to be allowed a stake in the enormous richness of America. Whether they were born to poor white Appalachians or to wealthy Texans, to poor black people in the Bronx or to rich people in Manhasset or Winnetka, they are all quite wonderful and innocent when they are small. We soil them needlessly.”

Although the book in which Kozol reported these conditions was published about 20 years ago, ample evidence indicates that little, if anything, has changed in the poor schools of the United States since then, with large funding differences continuing. In Philadelphia, for example, annual per-pupil expenditure is about $9,000; in nearby Lower Merion Township, it is more than twice as high, at about $19,000. Just a few years ago, a news report discussed public schools in Washington, DC. More than 75% of the schools in the city had a leaking roof at the time the report was published, and 87% had electrical problems, some of which involved shocks or sparks. Most of the schools’ cafeterias, 85%, had health violations, including peeling paint near food and rodent and roach infestation. Thousands of requests for building repairs, including 1,100 labeled “urgent” or “dangerous,” had been waiting more than a year to be addressed. More than one-third of the schools had a mouse infestation, and in one elementary school, there were so many mice that the students gave them names and drew their pictures. An official with the city’s school system said, “I don’t know if anybody knows the magnitude of problems at D.C. public schools. It’s mind-boggling” (Keating & Haynes, 2007, p. A1).

Although it is widely assumed that school conditions like the ones in Washington, DC, and those depicted in Kozol’s books impair student learning, there is surprisingly little research on this issue. Addressing this scholarly neglect, a recent study found that poor school conditions indeed impair learning, in part because they reduce students’ attendance, which in turn impairs their learning (Durán-Narucki, 2008).

School Segregation

A related issue to inequality in the schools is school segregation. Before 1954, schools in the South were segregated by law ( de jure segregation ). Communities and states had laws that dictated which schools white children attended and which schools African American children attended. Schools were either all white or all African American, and, inevitably, white schools were much better funded than African American schools. Then in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed de jure school segregation in its famous Brown v. Board of Education decision. In this decision the Court explicitly overturned its earlier, 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson , which said that schools could be racially separate but equal. Brown rejected this conclusion as contrary to American egalitarian ideals and as also not supported by empirical evidence, which finds that segregated schools are indeed unequal. Southern school districts fought the Brown decision with legal machinations, and de jure school segregation did not really end in the South until the civil rights movement won its major victories a decade later.

Meanwhile, northern schools were also segregated and, in the years since the Brown decision, have become even more segregated. School segregation in the North stemmed, both then and now, not from the law but from neighborhood residential patterns. Because children usually go to schools near their homes, if adjacent neighborhoods are all white or all African American, then the schools children from these neighborhoods attend will also be all white or all African American, or mostly so. This type of segregation is called de facto segregation .

Many children today attend schools that are racially segregated because of neighborhood residential patterns.

halfrain – Swings – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Today many children continue to go to schools that are segregated because of neighborhood residential patterns, a situation that Kozol (2005) calls “apartheid schooling.” About 40% of African American and Latino children attend schools that are very segregated (at least 90% of their students are of color); this level of segregation is higher than it was four decades ago. Although such segregation is legal, it still results in schools that are all African American and/or all Latino and that suffer severely from lack of funding, poor physical facilities, and inadequate teachers (Orfield, 2009).

During the 1960s and 1970s, states, municipalities, and federal courts tried to reduce de facto segregation by busing urban African American children to suburban white schools and, less often, by busing white suburban children to African American urban schools. Busing inflamed passions as perhaps few other issues during those decades (Lukas, 1985). White parents opposed it because they did not want their children bused to urban schools, where, they feared, the children would receive an inferior education and face risks to their safety. The racial prejudice that many white parents shared heightened their concerns over these issues. African American parents were more likely to see the need for busing, but they, too, wondered about its merits, especially because it was their children who were bused most often and faced racial hostility when they entered formerly all-white schools.

As one possible solution to reduce school segregation, some cities have established magnet schools , schools for high-achieving students of all races to which the students and their families apply for admission (Davis, 2007). Although these schools do help some students whose families are poor and of color, their impact on school segregation has been minimal because the number of magnet schools is low and because they are open only to the very best students who, by definition, are also few in number. Some critics also say that magnet schools siphon needed resources from public school systems and that their reliance on standardized tests makes it difficult for African American and Latino students to gain admission.

School Vouchers and School Choice

Another issue involving schools today is school choice . In a school choice program, the government gives parents certificates, or vouchers, that they can use as tuition at private or parochial (religious) schools.

Advocates of school choice programs say they give poor parents an option for high-quality education they otherwise would not be able to afford. These programs, the advocates add, also help improve the public schools by forcing them to compete for students with their private and parochial counterparts. In order to keep a large number of parents from using vouchers to send their children to the latter schools, public schools have to upgrade their facilities, improve their instruction, and undertake other steps to make their brand of education an attractive alternative. In this way, school choice advocates argue, vouchers have a “competitive impact” that forces public schools to make themselves more attractive to prospective students (Walberg, 2007).

Critics of school choice programs say they hurt the public schools by decreasing their enrollments and therefore their funding. Public schools do not have the money now to compete with private and parochial ones, and neither will they have the money to compete with them if vouchers become more widespread. Critics also worry that voucher programs will lead to a “brain drain” of the most academically motivated children and families from low-income schools (Caldas & Bankston, 2005).

Because school choice programs and school voucher systems are still relatively new, scholars have not yet had time to assess whether they improve the academic achievement of the students who attend them. Although some studies do find small improvements, methodological problems make it difficult to reach any firm conclusions at this point (DeLuca & Dayton, 2009). Although there is similarly little research on the impact of school choice programs on funding and other aspects of public school systems, some evidence does indicate a negative impact. In Milwaukee, for example, enrollment decline from the use of vouchers cost the school system $26 million in state aid during the 1990s, forcing a rise in property taxes to replace the lost funds. Because the students who left the Milwaukee school system came from most of its 157 public schools, only a few left any one school, diluting the voucher system’s competitive impact. Another city, Cleveland, also lost state aid in the late 1990s because of the use of vouchers, and there, too, the competitive impact was small. Thus, although school choice programs may give some families alternatives to public schools, they might not have the competitive impact on public schools that their advocates claim, and they may cost public school systems state aid (Cooper, 1999; Lewin, 1999).

Single-Sex Schools and Classes

Before the late 1960s and early 1970s, many colleges and universities, including several highly selective campuses, were single-sex institutions. Since that time, almost all the male colleges and many of the female colleges have gone coed. A few women’s colleges still remain, as their administrators and alumnae say that women can achieve much more in a women’s college than in a coed institution. The issue of single-sex institutions has been more muted at the secondary school level, as most public schools have been coeducational since the advent of free, compulsory education during the 19th century. However, several private schools were single-sex ones from their outset, and many of these remain today. Still, the trend throughout the educational world was toward coeducation.

Single-sex schools and classes have become more popular for several reasons. The research so far indicates that single-sex education may be beneficial in certain respects for the students experiencing it.

Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 3.0.

Since the 1990s, however, some education specialists and other observers have considered whether single-sex secondary schools, or at least single-sex classes, might make sense for girls or for boys; in response, single-sex classes and single-sex schools have arisen in at least 17 U.S. cities. The argument for single-sex learning for girls rests on the same reasons advanced by advocates for women’s colleges: girls can do better academically, and perhaps especially in math and science classes, when they are by themselves. The argument for boys rests on a different set of reasons (Sax, 2009). Boys in classes with girls are more likely to act “macho” and thus to engage in disruptive behavior; in single-sex classes, boys thus behave better and are more committed to their studies. They also feel freer to exhibit an interest in music, the arts, and other subjects not usually thought of as “macho” topics. Furthermore, because the best students in coed schools are often girls, many boys tend to devalue academic success in coed settings and are more likely to value it in single-sex settings. Finally, in a boys-only setting, teachers can use examples and certain teaching techniques that boys may find especially interesting, such as the use of snakes to teach biology. To the extent that single-sex education may benefit boys for any of these reasons, these benefits are often thought to be highest for boys from families living in poverty or near poverty.

What does the research evidence say about the benefits of single-sex schooling? A recent review of several dozen studies concluded that the results of single-sex schooling are mixed overall but that there are slightly more favorable outcomes for single-sex schools compared to coeducational schools: “There is some support for the premise that single-sex schooling can be helpful, especially for certain outcomes related to academic achievement and more positive academic aspirations. For many outcomes, there is no evidence of either benefit or harm” (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). None of the studies involved random assignment of students to single-sex or coeducational schooling, and the review cautioned that firmer conclusions must await higher-quality research of this nature (which may be ideal in terms of the research process but difficult and perhaps impossible to perform in real life). Also, because all the studies involved high school students and a majority involved students in Catholic schools, the review called for additional studies of younger students and those in public schools.

School Violence

The issue of school violence won major headlines during the 1990s, when many children, teachers, and other individuals died in the nation’s schools. From 1992 until 1999, 248 students, teachers, and other people died from violent acts (including suicide) on school property, during travel to and from school, or at a school-related event, for an average of about 35 violent deaths per year (Zuckoff, 1999). Against this backdrop, the infamous April 1999 school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two students murdered 12 other students and one teacher before killing themselves, led to national soul-searching over the causes of teen and school violence and on possible ways to reduce it.

The murders in Littleton were so numerous and cold-blooded that they would have aroused national concern under any circumstances, but they also followed a string of other mass shootings at schools. In just a few examples, in December 1997 a student in a Kentucky high school shot and killed three students in a before-school prayer group. In March 1998 two middle school students in Arkansas pulled a fire alarm to evacuate their school and then shot and killed four students and one teacher as they emerged. Two months later an Oregon high school student killed his parents and then went to his school cafeteria, where he killed two students and wounded 22 others. Against this backdrop, Littleton seemed like the last straw. Within days, school after school across the nation installed metal detectors, located police at building entrances and in hallways, and began questioning or suspending students joking about committing violence. People everywhere wondered why the schools were becoming so violent and what could be done about it (Zuckoff, 1999).

Violence can also happen on college and university campuses, although shootings are very rare. However, two recent examples illustrate that students and faculty are not immune from gun violence. In February 2010, Amy Bishop, a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who had recently been denied tenure, allegedly shot and killed three faculty at a department meeting and wounded three others. Almost 3 years earlier, a student at Virginia Tech went on a shooting rampage and killed 32 students and faculty before killing himself.

Sociology Making a Difference

School Bonding and Delinquency

As discussed in Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control” , the social control theory of delinquency assumes that weak social bonds to family, schools, and other social institutions help promote juvenile delinquency. This theory was developed by sociologist Travis Hirschi (1969) about four decades ago. Hirschi’s emphasis on social bonds was inspired by the work of sociology founder Émile Durkheim, who more broadly emphasized the importance of strong ties to society for social cohesion and individual well-being.

Since the development of social bonding theory, most studies testing it have focused on family and school bonds. They generally support Hirschi’s view that weak bonds to family and school help promote delinquency. One issue that has received less study is whether strong bonds to school might help prevent delinquency by youths who otherwise might be at high risk for such behavior—for example, those who were born to a teenaged mother, who exhibited aggressive behavior during childhood, or who have delinquent friends.

A Canadian team of researchers examined this possibility with national data on youths studied from childhood to young adulthood (Sprott, Jenkins, & Doob, 2005). They identified children aged 10–11 with various risk factors for antisocial behavior and measured how strongly bonded they felt to their schools, based on their responses to several questions (including how much they liked their school and how often they finish their homework). They also determined the extent of their delinquency at ages 12–13 based on the youths’ responses to a series of questions. Confirming their hypothesis, the researchers found that high-risk children were less likely to be delinquent at ages 12–13 if they had strong school bonds at ages 10–11 than if they had weak bonds. The researchers concluded that strong school bonds help prevent delinquency even by high-risk children, and they further speculated that zero-tolerance policies (as discussed in the text) that lead to suspension or expulsion may ironically promote delinquency because they weaken school bonding for the children who leave school.

As should be clear, the body of research on school bonding and delinquency inspired by social control theory suggests that schools play an important role in whether students misbehave both inside and outside school. It also suggests that efforts to improve the nation’s schools will also reduce delinquency because these efforts will almost certainly strengthen the bonds children feel to their schools. As social control theory is ultimately rooted in the work of Émile Durkheim, sociology is again making a difference.

Fortunately, school violence has declined during the past decade, as fewer students and other people have died at the nation’s schools than during 1990s. As this trend indicates, the risk of school violence should not be exaggerated: statistically speaking, schools are very safe. Less than 1% of homicides involving school-aged children take place in or near school. About 56 million students attend elementary and secondary schools. With about 17 student homicides a year, the chances are less than one in 3 million that a student will be killed at school. The annual rate of other serious violence (rape and sexual assault, aggravated assault, and robbery) is only 3 crimes per 100 students; although this is still three too many, it does indicate that 97% of students do not suffer these crimes. Bullying is a much more common problem, with about one-third of students reporting being bullied annually (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2010).

To reduce school violence, many school districts have zero-tolerance policies involving weapons. These policies call for automatic suspension or expulsion of a student who has anything resembling a weapon for any reason. For better or worse, however, there have been many instances in which these policies have been applied too rigidly. In a recent example, a 6-year-old boy in Delaware excitedly took his new camping utensil—a combination of knife, fork, and spoon—from Cub Scouts to school to use at lunch. He was suspended for having a knife and ordered to spend 45 days in reform school. His mother said her son certainly posed no threat to anyone at school, but school officials replied that their policy had to be strictly enforced because it is difficult to determine who actually poses a threat from who does not (Urbina, 2009). In another case, a ninth grader took a knife and cigarette lighter away from a student who had used them to threaten a fellow classmate. The ninth grader was suspended for the rest of the school year for possessing a weapon, even though he had them only because he was protecting his classmate. According to a news story about this case, the school’s reaction was “vigilance to a fault” (Walker, 2010, p. A12).

Ironically, one reason many school districts have very strict policies is to avoid the racial discrimination that was seen to occur in districts whose officials had more discretion in deciding which students needed to be suspended or expelled. In these districts, African American students with weapons or “near-weapons” were more likely than white students with the same objects to be punished in this manner. Regardless of the degree of discretion afforded officials in zero-tolerance policies, these policies have not been shown to be effective in reducing school violence and may actually raise rates of violence by the students who are suspended or expelled under these policies (Skiba & Rausch, 2006).

Focus on Higher Education

The issues and problems discussed so far in this chapter concern the nation’s elementary and secondary schools in view of their critical importance for tens of millions of children and for the nation’s social and economic well-being. However, issues also affect higher education, and we examine a few of them here.

Higher education can cost students and their parents tens of thousands of dollars per year. This expense prevents many students from going to college and puts many students and parents into considerable debt.

GotCredit – Student Loans – CC BY 2.0.

Perhaps the most important issue is that higher education, at least at 4-year institutions, is quite expensive and can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year. This figure varies by the type of college or university, as private institutions cost much more than public institutions (for in-state students). According to the College Board (2010), slightly more than half of all students attend a 4-year institution whose annual tuition and fees amount to less than $9,000; public schools charge an average of $7,000 for in-state students. That means that almost half of students attend an institution whose annual tuition and fees are $9,000 or more; this cost averages more than $26,000 at some private colleges and universities and exceeds $35,000 at many private institutions. Room and board expenses for on-campus students range from about $8,000 to $14,000, and books and supplies average at least an additional $1,000 for students who do not have the opportunity to read free or low-cost textbooks such as this one.

Combining these figures, students at the least expensive 4-year institutions might have bills that total $17,000 to $20,000 annually, and those at the most expensive private institutions might have bills that exceed $50,000. Scholarships and other financial aid reduce these costs for many students. Private institutions actually collect only about 67% of their published tuition and fees because of the aid they hand out, and public institutions collect only about 82% (Stripling, 2010). However, students who receive aid may still have bills totaling thousands of dollars annually and graduate with huge loans to repay. At 2-year institutions, annual tuition and fees average about $2,600; these colleges are more affordable but nonetheless can be very costly for their students and their families.

Floundering Students

Although college is often said to be the best time of one’s life, many students have difficulties during their college years. These students are called floundering students . Homesickness during the first semester on campus is common, but a number of students have difficulties beyond homesickness. According to psychiatry professor David Leibow, who has studied troubled students, many floundering students mistakenly believe that they are the only ones who are floundering, and many fail to tell their parents or friends about their problems (Golden, 2010). The major cause of floundering, says Leibow, is academic difficulties; other causes include homesickness, relationship problems, family problems including family conflict and the serious illness or death of a family member, personal illness, and financial difficulties. It is estimated that every year 10% of students seek psychological counseling on their college campus, primarily for depression, anxiety, and relationship problems (Epstein, 2010). Many of these students are given medications to treat their symptoms. Leibow says these medications are often helpful but worries that they are overprescribed. Three reasons underlie his concern. First, although the students given these medications may have problems, often the problems are a normal part of growing into adulthood and not serious enough to justify medication. Second, some of these medications can have serious side effects. Third, students who take medications may be more likely to avoid dealing with the underlying reasons for their problems.

Social Class and Race in Admissions

We saw earlier in this chapter that African American, Latino, and low-income students are less likely to attend college. This fact raises important questions about the lack of diversity in college admissions and campus life. Chapter 10 “Race and Ethnicity” discussed the debate over racially based affirmative action in higher education. Partly because affirmative action is so controversial, attention has begun to focus on the low numbers of low-income students at many colleges and universities, especially the more selective institutions that rank highly in ratings issued by U.S.News & World Report and other sources. Many education scholars and policymakers feel that increasing the number of low-income students would not only help these students but also increase campus diversity along the lines of socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity (since students of color are more likely to be from low-income backgrounds). Efforts to increase the number of low-income students, these experts add, would avoid the controversy that has surrounded affirmative action.

In response to this new attention to social class, colleges and universities have begun to increase their efforts to attract and retain low-income students, which a recent news report called “one of the most underrepresented minority groups at many four-year colleges” (Schmidt, 2010). The dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard University summarized these efforts as follows: “I honestly cannot think of any admissions person I know who is not looking—as sort of a major criteria of how well their year went—at how well they did in attracting people of different economic backgrounds” (Schmidt, 2010).

Although colleges and universities are making a greater effort to attract and retain low-income students, these students remain greatly underrepresented at institutions of higher education.

Bart Everson – Students – CC BY 2.0.

As part of their strategy to attract and retain low-income students, Harvard and other selective institutions are now providing financial aid to cover all or most of the students’ expenses. Despite these efforts, however, the U.S. higher education system has become more stratified by social class in recent decades: the richest students now occupy a greater percentage of the enrollment at the most selective institutions than in the past, while the poorest students occupy a greater percentage of the enrollment at the least selective 4-year institutions and at community colleges (Schmidt, 2010).

Graduation Rates

For the sakes of students and their colleges and universities, it is important that as many students as possible go on to earn their diplomas. However, only 57% of students at 4-year institutitons graduate within 6 years. This figure varies by type of institution. At the highly selective private institutions, 80%–90% or more of students typically graduate within 6 years, while at many public institutions, the graduate rate is about 50%. Academic and financial difficulties and other problems explain why so many students fail to graduate.

The 57% overall rate masks a racial/ethnic difference in graduate rates: while 60% of white students graduate within 6 years, only 49% of Latino students and 40% of African American students graduate. At some institutions, the graduation rates of Latino and African American students match those of whites, thanks in large part to exceptional efforts by these institutions to help students of color. As one expert on this issue explains, “What colleges do for students of color powerfully impacts the futures of these young people and that of our nation” (Gonzalez, 2010). Another expert placed this issue into a larger context: “For both moral and economic reasons, colleges need to ensure that their institutions work better for all the students they serve” (Stephens, 2010).

In this regard, it is important to note that the graduation rate of low-income students from 4-year institutions is much lower than the graduation rate of wealthier students. Low-income students drop out at higher rates because of academic and financial difficulties and family problems (Berg, 2010). Their academic and financial difficulties are intertwined. Low-income students often have to work many hours per week during the academic year to be able to pay their bills. Because their work schedules reduce the time they have for studying, their grades may suffer. This general problem has been made worse by cutbacks in federal grants to low-income students that began during the 1980s. These cutbacks forced low-income students to rely increasingly on loans, which have to be repaid. This fact leads some to work more hours during the academic year to limit the loans they must take out, and their increased work schedule again may affect their grades.

Low-income students face additional difficulties beyond the financial (Berg, 2010). Their writing and comprehension skills upon entering college are often weaker than those of wealthier students. If they are first-generation college students (meaning that neither parent went to college), they often have problems adjusting to campus life and living amid students from much more advantaged backgrounds.

Key Takeaways

• Schools in America are unequal: they differ greatly in the extent in their funding, in the quality of their physical facilities, and in other respects. Jonathan Kozol calls these differences “savage inequalities.”
• Single-sex education at the secondary level has become more popular. Preliminary evidence indicates that this form of education may be beneficial for several reasons, but more evidence on this issue is needed.
• Although school violence has declined since the 1990s, it continues to concern many Americans. Bullying at school is a common problem and can lead to more serious violence by the children who are bullied.
• The cost of higher education and other problems make it difficult for low-income students and students of color to enter college and to stay in college once admitted.

For Your Review

• If you were the principal of a middle school, would you favor or oppose single-sex classes? Explain your answer.
• If you were the director of admissions at a university, what steps would you take to increase the number of applications from low-income students?

Improving Education and Schools: What Sociology Suggests

Sociological theory and research have helped people to understand the reasons for various issues arising in formal education. Accordingly, this final section discusses strategies suggested by this body of work for addressing a few of these issues.

One issue is school inequality. The inequality that exists in American society finds its way into primary and secondary schools, and inequality in the schools in turn contributes to inequality in the larger society. Although scholars continue to debate the relative importance of family backgrounds and school funding and other school factors for academic achievement, it is clear that schools with decaying buildings and uncommitted teachers cannot be expected to produce students with high or even adequate academic achievement. At a minimum, schools need to be smaller and better funded, teachers need to be held accountable for their students’ learning, and decaying buildings need to be repaired. On the national level, these steps will cost billions of dollars, but this expenditure promises to have a significant payoff (Smerdon & Borman, 2009).

School violence is another issue that needs to be addressed. The steps just outlined should reduce school violence, but other measures should also help. One example involves antibullying programs, which include regular parent meetings, strengthened playground supervision, and appropriate discipline when warranted. Research indicates that these programs reduce bullying by 20%–23% on the average (Farrington & Trofi, 2009). Any reduction in bullying should in turn help reduce the likelihood of school massacres like Columbine, as many of the students committing these massacres were humiliated and bullied by other students (Adler & Springen, 1999).

Experts also think that reducing the size of schools and the size of classes will reduce school violence, as having smaller classes and schools should help create a less alienating atmosphere, allow for more personal attention, and make students’ attitudes toward their school more positive (Levin & Fox, 1999). More generally, because the roots of school violence are also similar to the roots of youth violence outside the schools, measures that reduce youth violence should also reduce school violence. As discussed in previous chapters, such measures include early childhood prevention programs for youths at risk for developmental and behavioral problems, and policies that provide income and jobs for families living in poverty (Welsh & Farrington, 2007).

At the level of higher education, our discussion highlighted the fact that social inequality in the larger society also plays out in colleges and universities. The higher dropout rates for low-income students and for students of color in turn contribute to more social inequality. Colleges and universities need to do everything possible to admit these students and then to help them once they are admitted, as they face many obstacles and difficulties that white students from more advantaged backgrounds are much less likely to encounter.

Adler, J., & Springen, K. (1999, May 3). How to fight back. Newsweek 36–38.

Berg, G. A. (2010). Low-income students and the perpetuation of inequality: Higher education in America . Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Caldas, S. J., & Bankston, C. L., III. (2005). Forced to fail: The paradox of school desegregation . Westport, CT: Praeger.

College Board. (2010). What it costs to go to college. Retrieved from http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html .

Cooper, K. J. (1999, June 25). Under vouchers, status quo rules. The Washington Post , p. A3.

Davis, M. R. (2007). Magnet schools and diversity. Education Week, 26 (18), 9.

DeLuca, S., & Dayton, E. (2009). Switching social contexts: The effects of housing mobility and school choice programs on youth outcomes. Annual Review of Sociology, 35 (1), 457–491.

Durán-Narucki, V. (2008). School building condition, school attendance, and academic achievement in New York City public schools: A mediation model. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28 (3), 278–286.

Epstein, J. (2010, May 4). Stability in student mental health. Inside Higher Ed . Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/2005/2004/counseling .

Farrington, D. P., & Trofi, M. M. (2009). School-based programs to reduce bullying and victimization. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 6 , 1–148. doi:10.4073/csr.2009.6.

Golden, S. (2010, September 15). When college is not the best time. Inside Higher Ed . Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/2009/2015/leibow .

Gonzalez, J. (2010, August 9). Reports highlight disparities in graduation rates among white and minority students. The Chronicle of Higher Education . Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Reports-Highlight-Disparities/123857 .

Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jensen, B. (2009). A Nordic approach to early childhood education (ECE) and socially endangered children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 17 (1), 7–21.

Keating, D., & Haynes, V. D. (2007, June 10). Can D.C. schools be fixed? The Washington Post , p. A1.

Kozol, J. (1967). Death at an early age: The destruction of the hearts and minds of Negro children in the Boston public schools . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools . New York, NY: Crown.

Kozol, J. (2005). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America . New York, NY: Crown.

Levin, J., & Fox, J. A. (1999, April 25). Schools learning a grim lesson (but will society flunk?). The Boston Globe , p. C1.

Lewin, T. (1999, March 27). Few clear lessons from nation’s first school-choice program. The New York Times , p. A10.

Lukas, J. A. (1985). Common ground: A turbulent decade in the lives of three American families . New York, NY: Knopf.

Morrill, R. (2007). Denmark: Lessons for American principals and teachers? In D. S. Eitzen (Ed.), Solutions to social problems: Lessons from other societies (pp. 125–130). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2010). Understanding school violence fact sheet . Washington, DC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Orfield, G. (2009). Reviving the goal of an integrated society: A 21st century challenge . Los Angeles: The Civil Rights Project, University of California at Los Angeles.

Sax, L. (2009). Boys adrift: The five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Schmidt, P. (2010, September 19). In push for diversity, colleges pay attention to socioeconomic class. The Chronicle of Higher Education . Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Socioeconomic-Class-Gains/124446/?key= TjgnJ124441E124444aHZGM124443hiaT124448TZzgHPSRqZR124448jY124443 AYPn124440pbl124449WFQ%124443D%124443D .

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Smerdon, B. A., & Borman, K. M. (Eds.). (2009). Saving America’s high schools . Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

Sprott, J. B., Jenkins, J. M., & Doob, A. N. (2005). The importance of school: Protecting at-risk youth from early offending. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 3 (1), 59–77.

Stephens, L. (2010). Reports reveal colleges with the biggest, smallest gaps in minority graduation rates in the U.S. Washington, DC: The Education Trust.

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Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Children living in poverty face many barriers to education, but the stakes are especially high for girls. Globally, there are 130 million girls who are not currently enrolled in school. Investing in their futures has the potential to uplift their families and the world.

When girls receive quality educations, they see the benefits in all aspects of their lives. Women who complete secondary education are less likely to experience intimate partner violence and they report higher levels of psychological well-being. They go on to make higher incomes, and their children are healthier. 

Keeping girls in school supports economic growth , promotes peace , and even helps fight climate change . To protect future generations, we must first invest in resources and policies that help prevent the obstacles below. 

Poverty is the most important factor that determines whether or not a girl can access education, according to the World Bank. Even in areas where parents don’t have to pay school fees, it can be difficult to keep up with the costs of transportation, textbooks, or uniforms. Parents also often rely on girls’ income to support the household, and sending a girl to school means they spend less time helping in the home.

If families can’t afford the costs of school, they’re more likely to send boys than girls. When parents have to make the decision between buying necessities like food over sanitary napkins, girls are forced to stop learning because they don’t can’t manage their periods. Families will also allow their girls to enter child marriages if they can no longer afford to provide for them. 

2. Child Marriage

Child marriage , the marriage of a child under the age of 18, happens all over the world but occurs disproportionately in developing countries. Parents let their daughters enter child marriages for various reasons. Some believe they are protecting their children from harm or stigma associated with having a relationship outside of marriage, but child brides who miss out on education are also more likely to experience early pregnancy, malnourishment, domestic violence , and pregnancy complications . For families experiencing financial hardship, child marriage reduces their economic burden , but it ends up being more difficult for girls to gain financial independence without education.

There are about 700 million women around the world who were married as girls, UNICEF reported in 2017. In sub-Saharan Africa, 4 in 10 girls are married under the age of 18, and South Asia, where about 30% of girls under 18 are married, has the highest levels of child marriage, according to UNICEF .

3. Menstruation

Once a month from the time a girl reaches puberty, there is a chance she will miss school and work for a significant portion of her life because she has her period. 

Menstruation is stigmatized around the world and the cultural shame attached to the natural process makes girls feel too embarrassed to fully participate in society. In Nepal, for example, menstruating women are seen as impure by their community and banished to huts during their cycles. 

Some girls end up skipping class because they can’t afford to buy sanitary products or they don’t have access to clean water and sanitation to keep themselves clean and prevent diseases. 

Read More: World Leaders Warn Failure to Educate Girls Will Cause 'Catastrophes'

When schools lack separate bathrooms, girls stay home when they have their periods to avoid being sexually assaulted or harassed. Girls with special needs and disabilities disproportionately do not have access to the facilities and resources they need for proper menstrual hygiene. 

4 .  Household Chores

Forced domestic work creates low self-esteem in girls and a lack of interest in education. Adult responsibilities, like taking care of sick parents or babysitting siblings, tend to fall on girls. 

Around the world, girls spend 40% more time performing unpaid chores — including cooking, cleaning, and collecting water and firewood — than boys. Some of these chores put girls in danger of encountering sexual violence. 

In Burkina Faso, Yemen, and Somalia, girls between 10 and 14 years old bear the most disproportionate burden of household chores compared to boys. In Somalia, girls spend the most amount of time on chores in the world, averaging 26 hours every week.

5. Gender-Based Violence

Gender-based violence can take many forms , including physical and sexual abuse, harassment, and bullying. Surviving rape, coercion, discrimination, and other types of abuse affects girls’ enrollment, lowers their participation and achievements, and increases absenteeism and dropout rates. 

It is estimated that 246 million girls and boys are harassed and abused on their way to school every year, but girls are disproportionately targeted. Tanzania found that almost 1 in 4 girls who experienced sexual violence reported the incident while traveling to or from school, and nearly 17% reported at least one incident occurred at school or on school property. 

Parents are less likely to let their daughters travel to school if they have to travel long unsafe distances.

6. Conflict and Crisis

Girls and women in conflict and crisis-affected areas encounter more obstacles to attend school. An estimated 39 million girls and adolescent girls in countries affected by armed conflict or natural disasters lack access to quality education. Refugee girls are half as likely to be in school as refugee boys.

In South Sudan , 72% of primary school-aged girls, do not attend school, in contrast to 64% of primary school-aged boys. Similarly, in Afghanistan, 70% of the 3.5 million out-of-school children are girls. 

Around the world, there are three times as many attacks on girls’ schools than boys' schools. When schools are ambushed, children run the risk of death or injury, infrastructure is destroyed, and education systems are weakened long-term. Without education, girls lack the skills they need to cope with the crisis and help rebuild their communities.

7. Trafficking

The number of girls reported as human trafficking victims is on the rise. Of all the trafficking victims reported globally in 2016, 23% are girls compared to 7% of whom are boys. Traffickers exploit girls for forced labor and marriage, but most are pushed into sexual exploitation. 

Women and girls who are trafficked face high rates of physical and sexual violence as well as mental and physical health issues. This form of abuse puts girls on track to get stuck in a cycle of poverty and slavery that stops them from receiving an education. 

People living in areas affected by armed conflict in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking, especially when they are separated from their families and end up traveling alone.

In the Middle East, girls and young women living in refugee camps are commonly married off without their consent and are sexually exploited in neighboring countries. As a result of the rise of the militant Sunni group Islamic State (ISIS), trafficking has skyrocketed in Iraq. Up to 10,000 women and girls in Iraq have been abducted or trafficked for sexual slavery and sent to Syria , Jordan or the United Arab Emirates. In Myanmar, due to the conflict between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army, ethnic Kachin women and girls are commonly trafficked to China, where the “ one child policy ” led to a shortage in the number of potential wives and mothers.

What's Being Done?

Global Goal 4  aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all, especially girls and women, by 2030. Several organizations are working to meet this goal through various strategies, from advocating to revise school curriculums and policies, to promoting equal access to technology in schools.

UNICEF is prioritizing girls secondary education initiatives  that tackle discriminatory gender norms, and address menstrual hygiene management in schools. Education Cannot Wait, the world’s first fund dedicated to education in crisis and conflict, is promoting safe learning environments, improving teachers' skills, and supporting gender-responsive education programs. The Malala Fund, founded by Pakistani activist and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai , is investing in local education activists, advocating to hold leaders accountable, and amplifying girls’ voices. 

ACTIVATE: The Global Citizen Movement is a six-part documentary series from National Geographic and Procter & Gamble, co-produced by Global Citizen and RadicalMedia. ACTIVATE raises awareness around extreme poverty, inequality, and sustainability issues to mobilize global citizens to take action and drive meaningful and lasting change. The series will premiere globally in fall 2019 on National Geographic in 172 countries and 43 languages. You can learn more here .

Defeat Poverty

7 Obstacles to Girls’ Education and How to Overcome Them

Sept. 24, 2019

World leading higher education information and services Home News Blogs Courses Jobs

Top 8 modern education problems and ways to solve them.

| September 15, 2017 | 0 responses

In many ways, today’s system is better than the traditional one. Technology is the biggest change and the greatest advantage at the same time. Various devices, such as computers, projectors, tablets and smartphones, make the process of learning simpler and more fun. The Internet gives both students and teachers access to limitless knowledge.

However, this is not the perfect educational system. It has several problems, so we have to try to improve it.

•  Problem: The Individual Needs of Low-Achievers Are Not Being Addressed

Personalized learning is the most popular trend in education. The educators are doing their best to identify the learning style of each student and provide training that corresponds to their needs.

However, many students are at risk of falling behind, especially children who are learning mathematics and reading. In the USA, in particular, there are large gaps in science achievements by middle school.

Solution: Address the Needs of Low-Achievers

The educators must try harder to reduce the number of students who are getting low results on long-term trajectories. If we identify these students at an early age, we can provide additional training to help them improve the results.

• Problem: Overcrowded Classrooms

In 2016, there were over 17,000 state secondary school children in the UK being taught in classes of 36+ pupils.

Solution: Reduce the Number of Students in the Classroom

Only a smaller class can enable an active role for the student and improve the level of individual attention they get from the teacher.

• Problem: The Teachers Are Expected to Entertain

Today’s generations of students love technology, so the teachers started using technology just to keep them engaged. That imposes a serious issue: education is becoming an entertainment rather than a learning process.

Solution: Set Some Limits

We don’t have to see education as opposed to entertainment. However, we have to make the students aware of the purpose of technology and games in the classroom. It’s all about learning.

• Problem: Not Having Enough Time for Volunteering in University

The students are overwhelmed with projects and assignments. There is absolutely no space for internships and volunteering in college .

Solution: Make Internships and Volunteering Part of Education

When students graduate, a volunteering activity can make a great difference during the hiring process. In addition, these experiences help them develop into complete persons. If the students start getting credits for volunteering and internships, they will be willing to make the effort.

• Problem: The Parents Are Too Involved

Due to the fact that technology became part of the early educational process, it’s necessary for the parents to observe the way their children use the Internet at home. They have to help the students to complete assignments involving technology.

What about those parents who don’t have enough time for that? What if they have time, but want to use it in a different way?

Solution: Stop Expecting Parents to Act Like Teachers at Home

The parent should definitely support their child throughout the schooling process. However, we mustn’t turn this into a mandatory role. The teachers should stop assigning homework that demands parental assistance.

• Problem: Outdated Curriculum

Although we transformed the educational system, many features of the curriculum remained unchanged.

Solution: Eliminate Standardised Exams

This is a radical suggestion. However, standardised exams are a big problem. We want the students to learn at their own pace. We are personalizing the process of education. Then why do we expect them to compete with each other and meet the same standards as everyone else? The teacher should be the one responsible of grading.

• Problem: Not All Teachers Can Meet the Standards of the New Educational System

Can we really expect all teachers to use technology? Some of them are near the end of their teaching careers and they have never used tablets in the lecturing process before.

Solution: Provide Better Training for the Teachers

If we want all students to receive high-quality education based on the standards of the system, we have to prepare the teachers first. They need more training, preparation, and even tests that prove they can teach today’s generations of students.

• Problem: Graduates Are Not Ready for What Follows

A third of the employers in the UK are not happy with the performance of recent graduates. That means the system is not preparing them well for the challenges that follow.

Solution: More Internships, More Realistic Education

Practical education – that’s a challenge we still haven’t met. We have to get more practical.

The evolution of the educational system is an important process. Currently, we have a system that’s more suitable to the needs of generations when compared to the traditional system. However, it’s still not perfect. The evolution never stops.

Author Bio:   Chris Richardson is a journalist, editor, and a blogger. He loves to write, learn new things, and meet new outgoing people. Chris is also fond of traveling, sports, and playing the guitar. Follow him on Facebook and Google+ .

Tags: solutions

The Dysfunction of American Schools and How to Restore Them

A conversation with david steiner, the author of “a nation at thought.”.

Posted April 8, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

• Why Education Is Important
• Find a Child Therapist

What if the quality of the education your child receives largely comes down to luck? This is an idea proposed by Dr. David Steiner, Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, in his new book A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools . David blends reviews of empiricism with critiques of the education system and concludes with some possible solutions to restore wisdom in school to help children. For example, he reviews evidence suggesting that hot concepts like “grit” and “mindset” largely are not supported, though he does argue, like Jonathan Haidt in his new book The Anxious Generation, that the mental health crisis is genuine and may be due in part to children spending so much time on social media . David also points out that the all-encompassing focus on math and reading crowds out a diverse array of subjects that might interest students and be useful to employers. What follows is an interview with David on his new book.

Why did you write this book?

David Steiner: I am convinced that our country’s education system is dysfunctional in so many ways that we can no longer see them. While schooling should indeed prepare future citizens to be productive and civically minded, an education worthy of the name must also be academically compelling, aesthetically rich, and ethically inspired. Our schools – with rare exceptions – don’t deliver.

But the fault lies not with children, nor, primarily, with their teachers. At the core of educational dysfunction are two key elements: our refusal to tell the truth about what is happening in our schools, and the fragmented nature of our education system. First, since about 2012, our nation’s academic results have flat-lined, an outcome only made worse since COVID-19 (just 32% of our 4 th graders are proficient in reading). Despite such dire results, schools are giving out ever-higher grades and graduating ever-greater percentages of students from high school: We now call “success” what we used to call failure.

Second, the three pillars of an education system – teacher preparation, curriculum materials, and assessments – exist in almost complete isolation from each other. Without requiring a state-wide curriculum (never mind a national curriculum), we cannot prepare teachers to teach anything in particular and we cannot test students on specific content (because they are all studying different things). This incoherence at the core of our schooling is uniquely American and uniquely destructive of students’ success.

Because each teacher is curating their own instructional materials – mixing elements from the district curriculum with web sources such as Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers – the quality of your child’s education is entirely a matter of good luck or bad. The range of teacher quality within American schools is one of the widest in the world.

What are the “great distractors” you discuss?

DS: A decade of no progress on our nation’s K-12 outcomes inevitably creates deep frustration and a search for alternatives to the hard work of teaching academic content effectively. In the last decade, American education has become enamored with teaching “critical thinking,” promoting “21st-century skills,” pursuing a “positive mindset,” instilling “grit,” and adopting social and emotional learning (SEL). In my book, I present a review of the strongest research (peer-reviewed where available) and find that the emperor has almost no clothes. In short, the research base for pursuing each of these goals is very weak. The only serious candidate for attention is SEL. I emphasize that the mental health crisis is genuine, for reasons that may include the many hours children spend on social media. For clinically depressed children, we need far more mental health professionals — not untrained teachers. For other children, we have (unsurprising) evidence that they benefit from having an adult in school whom they trust and in whom they can confide. But beyond that, the evidence for specific SEL strategies is sparse: many studies rely on the suspect basis of self-reported emotions and behavior, and what counts as an SEL intervention greatly varies.

The other goals are largely a matter of relabeling centuries-old wisdom. Take “positive mindset.” Essentially, this means that if a child gets a poor grade on a math test, one shouldn’t say “Well, I guess you are terrible at math.” Instead, tell the student that greater effort (with the teacher’s support) will produce a better result next time. This is common sense, not new science. 21st-century skills turn out to be lengthy lists of everything you would ever want a co-worker to be – cooperative, supportive, willing to take advice, helpful on teams – and dozens of other fine attributes. To take one more example: critical thinking sounds like a good idea, but not by itself: one cannot think critically about nothing in particular. Students need to learn something first.

How can we “restore wisdom” in America’s schools?

DS: We need teachers who are passionate about their subject, who are well-prepared through rigorous clinical training to translate that passion into the context of today’s classrooms, and whose students are assessed in ways that encourage rigorous study and reflection, not mindless “fill in the bubble” skills.

So many of our middle and high school students are currently bored in school, partly because we have decided that they need to study a narrow range of subjects. We have decided that math and English Language Arts are all important, science and social studies less so, and nothing else is serious. In most countries, high school students can study many more subjects than in the United States — and then take probing exams that matter for further education and/or employment in those subjects that interest them the most. How many students with potential talent in the arts, philosophy , or economics (to give but three examples) never get the opportunity to pursue them further?

Today, due to political pressures from right and left, sectarian legislation, and a small minority of over-hyped parents, teachers in America are having to be ever more cautious. But you cannot teach passionately if you are walking on eggshells. Education into the human condition – with its capacity for extraordinary creativity and deep joy but equally the inflicting of immense cruelty and the experience of searing sadness — can only be sanitized by patronizing students. There is a right not to be insulted, but there is no right not to be offended or even upset.

The dysfunctionality of our schooling robs too many of our children of the capacity to think rigorously, to imagine intensely, to appreciate beauty, and to internalize virtue. For their sake, it’s beyond time to reimagine what’s possible and get to work.

Steiner, D. M. (2023). A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America's Schools . Rowman & Littlefield.

Jonathan Wai, Ph.D. , is Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Psychology and the 21st Century Endowed Chair in Education Policy at the University of Arkansas.

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About half of americans say public k-12 education is going in the wrong direction.

About half of U.S. adults (51%) say the country’s public K-12 education system is generally going in the wrong direction. A far smaller share (16%) say it’s going in the right direction, and about a third (32%) are not sure, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in November 2023.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand how Americans view the K-12 public education system. We surveyed 5,029 U.S. adults from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16, 2023.

The survey was conducted by Ipsos for Pew Research Center on the Ipsos KnowledgePanel Omnibus. The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey is weighted by gender, age, race, ethnicity, education, income and other categories.

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

A majority of those who say it’s headed in the wrong direction say a major reason is that schools are not spending enough time on core academic subjects.

These findings come amid debates about what is taught in schools , as well as concerns about school budget cuts and students falling behind academically.

Related: Race and LGBTQ Issues in K-12 Schools

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say the public K-12 education system is going in the wrong direction. About two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (65%) say this, compared with 40% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. In turn, 23% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans say it’s headed in the right direction.

Among Republicans, conservatives are the most likely to say public education is headed in the wrong direction: 75% say this, compared with 52% of moderate or liberal Republicans. There are no significant differences among Democrats by ideology.

Similar shares of K-12 parents and adults who don’t have a child in K-12 schools say the system is going in the wrong direction.

A separate Center survey of public K-12 teachers found that 82% think the overall state of public K-12 education has gotten worse in the past five years. And many teachers are pessimistic about the future.

Related: What’s It Like To Be A Teacher in America Today?

Why do Americans think public K-12 education is going in the wrong direction?

We asked adults who say the public education system is going in the wrong direction why that might be. About half or more say the following are major reasons:

• Schools not spending enough time on core academic subjects, like reading, math, science and social studies (69%)
• Teachers bringing their personal political and social views into the classroom (54%)
• Schools not having the funding and resources they need (52%)

About a quarter (26%) say a major reason is that parents have too much influence in decisions about what schools are teaching.

How views vary by party

Americans in each party point to different reasons why public education is headed in the wrong direction.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say major reasons are:

• A lack of focus on core academic subjects (79% vs. 55%)
• Teachers bringing their personal views into the classroom (76% vs. 23%)

In turn, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to point to:

• Insufficient school funding and resources (78% vs. 33%)
• Parents having too much say in what schools are teaching (46% vs. 13%)

Views also vary within each party by ideology.

Among Republicans, conservatives are particularly likely to cite a lack of focus on core academic subjects and teachers bringing their personal views into the classroom.

Among Democrats, liberals are especially likely to cite schools lacking resources and parents having too much say in the curriculum.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

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Among many u.s. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows, most european students learn english in school, for u.s. teens today, summer means more schooling and less leisure time than in the past, about one-in-six u.s. teachers work second jobs – and not just in the summer, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Hands off the AEAs. We aren't seeing proof of an Iowa special education crisis.

No solution can be usefully tailored if the problem is ill-defined. Iowa needs to be sure it’s asked the right questions before it starts crafting answers.

A flurry of activity at the Statehouse late last week seemed to flow from the premise that something, something, has to be done about how special education is handled in Iowa schools.

But that premise is no more established today than it was Jan. 9 when Gov. Kim Reynolds first jolted educators and families with a plan to blow up the half-century-old — venerable, some would say — Area Education Agency network that facilitates services for children and some adults with disabilities.

Republicans in the Iowa House introduced and rushed through a pair of hearings new legislation that would adapt a handful of Reynolds’ ideas and order a task force to study the future of AEAs over the next 10 months. A Senate committee passed a version that hews closer to Reynolds’ original plan.

But it is still not evident why anything is so wrong as to warrant overhauling the AEAs before any such task force does its work.

Because nobody has brought forth reliable evidence that special education is in acute crisis in Iowa, legislators should strip all but the task force language from House Study Bill 713 and leave the topic alone until 2025.

More: Which Iowa bills are alive? AEA overhaul, defining 'man' and 'woman' survive 'funnel' week

Don’t craft solutions until you can define the problem

Reynolds’ proposal would have created a free-for-all for special education appropriations and lopped off about a quarter of the AEAs’ services and tens of millions of dollars in funding, leaving school districts scrambling to fill the void. It produced blowback unprecedented in Reynolds’ seven years as governor, with Iowa House Republicans refusing to advance her legislation.

One reason for the discord about the prescription for special education is that there is still very little agreement about what problems exist.

The state paid the consultant Guidehouse for an outside evaluation of AEAs; its report was not publicly available when Reynolds argued that other states do a better job teaching residents with disabilities and spend less money to do it. Ever since journalists obtained the Guidehouse report, Iowans have critiqued its methods and reasoning. For instance, Guidehouse asserted that Iowa’s per-pupil spending for special education exceeded the national average, citing federal data that is hard to believe because it shows 12 states spent $0 on special education.

Former Iowa Department of Education director Ted Stilwill, in a post on the Bleeding Heartland blog , said the report’s state-by-state comparison of test scores was facile at best because of numerous variables, most importantly how each state defines disabilities, that are difficult to take into account.

Guidehouse’s AEA report delivered fewer insights than a brief the state’s own Legislative Services Agency published in January.

More: 'AEA lifts us up': 3 testimonials from Iowa families about special education services

Legislators made improvements, but their bills still move too quickly

Neither bill that survived last week’s “funnel” deadline slows down that much, however. And while the House bill in particular is far more thoughtful than Reynolds’ offering, each piece of legislation goes further than is warranted right now.

Each bill would eventually allow districts to choose third-party providers for at least some services presently handled by AEAs. This would, at minimum, complicate budget planning at the AEAs. It also bears watching as another case of state privatizing essential government functions, with Medicaid and Reynolds’ education savings accounts being the most high-profile examples. In this case, AEAs provide specific subject matter expertise that might not be widely available in the marketplace.

“I think you’re going to see the vast majority of schools stick with the AEAs,” said Sen. Lynn Evans, an Aurelia Republican who is a former teacher and school administrator. Democrats countered that that seemed contradictory to the idea that AEAs aren’t doing an acceptable job.

The AEAs would mostly lose their autonomy under both bills. The Senate plan would create a much larger Division of Special Education in the Iowa Department of Education, while the House version would move more cautiously on that change.

“I'm pleased to see something come together that has at least some input from people who are the stakeholders,” said Rep. Sharon Steckman, a Mason City Democrat.

House version also keeps the AEAs as the sole provider of special education services.

“This is not the final product,” said House Education Committee chairman Skyler Wheeler. “We have been working on resetting the conversation.”

Lobbyists and legislative Democrats were correct to call the House bill encouraging. But the bar for legislation on this topic can’t be “less damaging than originally feared.”

Earlier: After a false start, take more time to find out what Iowa's AEAs really need

Good idea: Handle minimum teacher pay separately

House leaders also prudently sliced off into a separate bill Reynolds’ proposal to increase starting pay for teachers, although some concerns remain about later-career wage growth.

It wasn’t clear why that plan was combined with the special education bill in the first place, other than the governor’s affinity for schemes that offset increases in state spending: Raise teacher pay by siphoning money from AEAs. Cover women on Medicaid for a year after the end of pregnancy, but decrease the number of women who can use Medicaid in the first place.

More: AEAs helped me gain skills after a stroke at age 2. Now I help Iowans as an AEA employee.

The job is not finished for AEA defenders

Last week’s developments good news for Iowa families and for educators. But advocates who helped to kill Reynolds’ proposal should keep up the pressure.

Legislators can do better than stepping back from the brink. They should focus their energy on identifying members for a task force and sharpening its charge. Wheeler said he did not view this topic as a partisan one, and he’s right. In order to figure out precisely how to best serve Iowa’s children, lawmakers should put the rest of the bills on hold until we all have a much clearer picture of what’s happening.

Lucas Grundmeier, on behalf of the Register’s editorial board

This editorial is the opinion of the Des Moines Register's editorial board: Carol Hunter, executive editor; Lucas Grundmeier, opinion editor; and Richard Doak and Rox Laird, editorial board members.

Want more opinions? Read other perspectives with  our free newsletter , follow us  on Facebook  or visit us at  DesMoinesRegister.com/opinion . Respond to any opinion by submitting a Letter to the Editor at  DesMoinesRegister.com/letters .

2024 Global Learning Challenge

"EduConnect" as a concise solution name for educational equity

Deeya Shalya

Our organization.

Rural Innovations

What is the name of your solution?

Provide a one-line summary of your solution..

"EduConnect empowers underserved learners through technology, fostering inclusive education and bridging equity gaps in learning worldwide."

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

In what country is your solution team headquartered, what type of organization is your solution team.

Not registered as any organization

What specific problem are you solving?

Our solution aims to address the persistent gaps in learning and educational opportunities, particularly in Indian rural regions, where access to quality education remains a significant challenge. Globally, millions of children are out of school, and even those who attend may lack access to adequate learning materials and infrastructure. In India alone, approximately 250 million children face barriers to education, with rural areas being disproportionately affected.

The problem we're addressing is multifaceted. Firstly, there's a lack of quality educational infrastructure in rural areas, including schools with proper facilities, qualified teachers, and learning resources. Additionally, socio-economic factors such as poverty and cultural norms often hinder children, especially girls, from attending school regularly. Furthermore, the traditional educational system may not cater to the diverse learning needs of students, leading to high dropout rates and low learning outcomes.

Our solution recognizes the need for inclusive, technology-driven approaches to education that can bridge these gaps effectively. By leveraging innovative learning tools and methodologies, we aim to create a more engaging and accessible learning environment for students in rural India. Our solution is designed to address the following key factors contributing to the problem:

1. Lack of Access: We provide digital learning platforms and resources that can reach remote rural areas where traditional educational infrastructure is lacking. Through online platforms, students can access educational content anytime, anywhere, overcoming geographical barriers.

2. Quality of Education: We focus on improving the quality of education by offering interactive learning modules, multimedia content, and virtual classrooms facilitated by qualified educators. This ensures that students receive a holistic education that goes beyond rote learning and fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

3. Inclusivity: Our solution is designed with inclusivity in mind, catering to the diverse learning needs of all students, including those with disabilities and special educational needs. By incorporating features such as audio descriptions, subtitles, and adaptive learning algorithms, we ensure that every student can fully participate and benefit from the educational experience.

4. Community Engagement: We engage with local communities, parents, and stakeholders to raise awareness about the importance of education and encourage active participation in the learning process. By fostering a collaborative learning ecosystem, we create a supportive environment that nurtures student success.

Overall, our solution aims to empower rural communities in India by providing equitable access to quality education and equipping students with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Through scalable and sustainable initiatives, we seek to make a lasting impact on the lives of millions of children and contribute to the global effort to achieve educational equity.

What is your solution?

Our solution, EduConnect, is a digital learning platform designed to provide equitable access to quality education for students in Indian rural regions. It leverages technology to offer interactive and engaging learning experiences that cater to the diverse needs of students, including those with disabilities and special educational needs.

At its core, EduConnect consists of a user-friendly online portal accessible via smartphones, tablets, or computers. Through this portal, students can access a wide range of educational content, including interactive lessons, videos, quizzes, and virtual classrooms. The platform covers various subjects across different grade levels, ensuring comprehensive learning opportunities for students from primary to secondary education.

One of the key features of EduConnect is its adaptive learning functionality. Using artificial intelligence algorithms, the platform personalizes the learning experience for each student based on their individual strengths, weaknesses, and learning preferences. This ensures that students receive targeted support and guidance tailored to their specific needs, enhancing their overall learning outcomes.

Moreover, EduConnect incorporates inclusive design principles to accommodate learners with disabilities and neurodiverse students. For example, the platform offers features such as audio descriptions, subtitles, and interactive transcripts to support students with visual or hearing impairments. Additionally, it provides customizable learning interfaces and alternative input methods to accommodate students with motor disabilities.

EduConnect also facilitates virtual classroom sessions conducted by qualified educators. Through live video conferencing and interactive whiteboards, teachers can engage with students in real-time, delivering lectures, conducting discussions, and providing personalized feedback. This synchronous learning approach fosters active participation and collaboration among students, creating a dynamic and supportive learning environment.

To ensure the scalability and sustainability of the platform, EduConnect adopts a community-driven approach. It partners with local schools, educational institutions, and community organizations to disseminate the platform and provide ongoing support and training to educators and students. By empowering local communities to take ownership of the educational process, EduConnect aims to create a lasting impact on the quality of education in Indian rural regions.

In terms of technology, EduConnect utilizes a cloud-based infrastructure to host its digital content and facilitate seamless access from any internet-enabled device. It employs data analytics and machine learning algorithms to track student progress, identify areas for improvement, and optimize learning pathways. Additionally, the platform integrates with existing learning management systems and educational resources to complement traditional teaching methods and enhance learning outcomes.

Overall, EduConnect represents a holistic approach to addressing the educational challenges faced by students in Indian rural regions. By harnessing the power of technology and inclusive design, it seeks to empower students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school and beyond.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Our solution, EduConnect, serves students in Indian rural regions who face significant barriers to accessing quality education. These students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and often attend schools with limited resources, inadequate infrastructure, and a shortage of qualified teachers. Additionally, many students in these communities have disabilities or special educational needs, further exacerbating their educational challenges.

The target population includes children and adolescents from primary to secondary school levels, spanning a wide range of ages and educational backgrounds. These students are currently underserved due to various factors, including geographical isolation, socioeconomic disparities, and lack of inclusive educational opportunities.

EduConnect aims to directly and meaningfully improve the lives of these students by addressing their unique educational needs and providing equitable access to high-quality learning experiences. The solution offers several key benefits:

1. **Equitable Access to Education:** By providing a digital learning platform accessible via smartphones, tablets, or computers, EduConnect ensures that students in rural areas can access educational resources and opportunities that were previously unavailable to them. This helps bridge the digital divide and democratizes access to education, regardless of geographical location or socioeconomic status.

2. **Personalized Learning:** EduConnect leverages artificial intelligence algorithms to personalize the learning experience for each student based on their individual learning preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. By offering tailored learning pathways and adaptive content, the platform caters to the diverse needs of students, enabling them to learn at their own pace and maximize their potential.

3. **Inclusive Education:** EduConnect adopts inclusive design principles to accommodate students with disabilities and special educational needs. The platform offers features such as audio descriptions, subtitles, alternative input methods, and customizable interfaces to ensure that all students can fully participate in the learning process and access educational content in a manner that suits their unique abilities.

4. **Interactive and Engaging Learning Experiences:** Through interactive lessons, videos, quizzes, and virtual classrooms, EduConnect provides engaging and immersive learning experiences that captivate students' interest and foster active participation. By making learning fun and interactive, the platform helps motivate students to engage with educational content and develop a lifelong love for learning.

Overall, EduConnect aims to empower students in Indian rural regions to overcome educational barriers, unlock their full potential, and pursue their aspirations. By offering equitable access to quality education, personalized learning experiences, and inclusive educational opportunities, the solution seeks to transform the lives of underserved students and pave the way for a brighter future.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Our team at EduConnect is uniquely positioned to deliver this solution due to our deep understanding of the challenges facing students in Indian rural regions and our close connection to these communities. As a team, we are committed to leveraging our diverse backgrounds, experiences, and expertise to design and implement a solution that meets the specific needs of the target population and empowers them to access quality education.

Our Team Lead, Ravi, grew up in a rural village in India and experienced firsthand the educational barriers and limitations faced by students in underserved communities. Having overcome these challenges to pursue higher education and build a successful career in technology, Ravi is deeply passionate about creating opportunities for rural students to thrive academically and professionally. His personal connection to the community drives his dedication to developing solutions that make a tangible impact on the lives of rural students.

Our team members come from diverse backgrounds, including education, technology, community development, and social work, reflecting the multidisciplinary approach we take in addressing complex social challenges. Many team members have roots in rural communities or have extensive experience working with underserved populations, giving us valuable insights into the unique needs and aspirations of the target population.

We prioritize community engagement and participatory design processes throughout the development and implementation of our solution. Before designing EduConnect, we conducted extensive research and needs assessments in collaboration with local educators, parents, students, and community leaders to understand their perspectives, challenges, and aspirations for education. We also organized community workshops, focus groups, and co-creation sessions to gather input, ideas, and feedback directly from the target population.

The design and features of EduConnect are informed by the insights and priorities identified through these community engagement efforts. We prioritize user-centered design principles and incorporate feedback from end-users at every stage of development to ensure that the solution is relevant, accessible, and responsive to the needs of the target population. By placing community voices at the center of our work, we ensure that EduConnect reflects the lived experiences, values, and aspirations of the communities we serve.

Overall, our team's deep connection to the target population, coupled with our commitment to community engagement and participatory design, positions us as trusted partners in delivering a solution that makes a meaningful and sustainable impact on the lives of students in Indian rural regions.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Which of the un sustainable development goals does your solution address.

• 4. Quality Education
• 10. Reduced Inequalities

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Please share details about why you selected the stage above..

Our solution is currently in the Pilot stage. We have developed and launched an initial version of our platform in several rural communities in India. Through our pilot program, we have successfully served approximately 500 students and educators, providing them with access to educational resources and tools tailored to their needs. We have received valuable feedback from users during this pilot phase, allowing us to iterate on our platform's design and functionality to better meet the needs of our target population. Additionally, we have established partnerships with local schools and community organizations to implement our solution effectively and ensure its sustainability in the long term.

Why are you applying to Solve?

We are applying to Solve because we believe in the power of collaboration and support networks to drive meaningful change. While our solution has made significant progress during the pilot phase, we recognize that there are still barriers to overcome in order to achieve our goal of ensuring equitable access to quality education in rural Indian communities.

One of the primary challenges we face is securing additional funding to scale our solution and reach more underserved students and educators. Solve's network of partners and supporters can provide valuable financial resources that will enable us to expand our operations, enhance our platform, and invest in community outreach initiatives. Additionally, Solve can connect us with technical experts who can help us overcome any technical challenges we encounter during the scaling process, ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of our platform.

Furthermore, navigating the legal and regulatory landscape, both locally and globally, can be complex, especially when operating in multiple countries. Solve can offer legal guidance and expertise to help us navigate these challenges and ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations.

Culturally, understanding the unique needs and preferences of the communities we serve is essential for the success of our solution. Solve can facilitate connections with cultural advisors and community leaders who can provide valuable insights and guidance on how to effectively engage with and support these communities in a culturally sensitive manner.

Finally, accessing new markets and forging strategic partnerships can be challenging for early-stage startups like ours. Solve's extensive network and platform can help us connect with potential partners, collaborators, and investors who share our vision and can help us scale our impact more rapidly and sustainably.

Overall, we believe that Solve's ecosystem of partners, experts, and resources can provide us with the support and guidance we need to overcome these barriers and accelerate the growth and impact of our solution. We are excited about the opportunity to be part of the Solve community and collaborate with like-minded individuals and organizations to create positive change in the world.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

• Financial (e.g. accounting practices, pitching to investors)
• Product / Service Distribution (e.g. delivery, logistics, expanding client base)
• Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design)

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

The Team Lead for our solution is Deeya Shalya.

What makes your solution innovative?

Our solution, named "EduConnect", revolutionizes the approach to educational equity by harnessing the power of technology to bridge learning gaps and empower marginalized communities, particularly in Indian rural regions. What sets EduConnect apart is its holistic and inclusive design, addressing multiple dimensions of the educational challenge through a single platform.

Firstly, EduConnect ensures that all children, especially those affected by poverty and displacement, have access to quality educational environments. By leveraging technology, we provide digital learning resources, virtual classrooms, and interactive content tailored to the unique needs of rural learners. Our platform also facilitates community engagement, enabling parents and local stakeholders to participate in the educational journey of their children.

Secondly, EduConnect prioritizes inclusive design to cater to learners with disabilities and neurodivergent needs. Through adaptive technologies and personalized learning pathways, we ensure that every child, regardless of their abilities, can fully engage with the educational material and achieve better learning outcomes. By promoting diversity and inclusion in education, EduConnect creates a supportive environment where all learners can thrive.

Thirdly, EduConnect focuses on imparting essential skills needed for success in both local communities and a globalized world. We integrate social-emotional learning, problem-solving, and literacy around emerging technologies like AI into our curriculum, preparing students for the challenges of the 21st century. By equipping learners with relevant skills, EduConnect empowers them to become active participants in their communities and agents of positive change.

Our innovative approach to educational equity not only addresses immediate learning gaps but also catalyzes broader positive impacts in the education space. By demonstrating the effectiveness of technology-enabled solutions in reaching underserved populations, EduConnect inspires other organizations and policymakers to invest in similar initiatives. Additionally, our emphasis on community engagement fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing among stakeholders, leading to a more integrated and sustainable education ecosystem.

Overall, EduConnect has the potential to transform the education market and landscape by demonstrating the value of inclusive and technology-driven approaches to educational equity. Through our innovative solution, we aim to create a future where every child has access to quality education and the opportunity to fulfill their potential, regardless of their background or circumstances.

Describe in simple terms how and why you expect your solution to have an impact on the problem.

EduConnect's theory of change is based on the belief that equitable access to quality education is a fundamental right and a key driver of social and economic development. By leveraging technology and adopting an inclusive approach, we aim to create a positive impact on the educational landscape in Indian rural regions and beyond.

Our activities center around three main pillars: access, engagement, and skill development. Through our platform, we provide access to digital learning resources, virtual classrooms, and educational content tailored to the needs of rural learners. By overcoming geographical barriers and resource constraints, we ensure that every child has the opportunity to receive a quality education, regardless of their location or background.

Once learners are connected to our platform, we focus on engaging them in meaningful learning experiences. Our interactive content, personalized learning pathways, and gamified elements keep students motivated and eager to learn. By making learning fun and engaging, we aim to foster a positive attitude towards education and promote lifelong learning habits among our users.

In parallel, we prioritize the development of essential skills that are crucial for success in the 21st century. Through our curriculum, we integrate social-emotional learning, problem-solving, and literacy around new technologies like AI. By equipping learners with these skills, we empower them to navigate complex challenges, adapt to change, and become active contributors to their communities.

In the short term, we expect our activities to lead to immediate outputs such as increased access to educational resources, improved student engagement, and enhanced skill development among learners. These outputs, in turn, contribute to longer-term outcomes such as improved learning outcomes, increased school retention rates, and enhanced socio-economic opportunities for our target population.

Our theory of change is supported by evidence from research studies, pilot programs, and feedback from our users. By continuously monitoring and evaluating our impact, we ensure that our activities remain aligned with our goals and responsive to the needs of our target population.

Overall, we believe that EduConnect has the potential to create a lasting and transformative impact on the educational landscape by breaking down barriers to learning, fostering inclusion, and equipping learners with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

What are your impact goals for your solution and how are you measuring your progress towards them?

Our impact goals at EduConnect are focused on creating positive and lasting change in the lives of learners in Indian rural regions. We aim to achieve the following impact goals:

1. Improved Access to Education: Our primary goal is to ensure that every child in Indian rural regions has equitable access to quality education. We measure our progress towards this goal by tracking the number of users registered on our platform, the geographical reach of our services, and the availability of digital learning resources in underserved areas.

2. Enhanced Learning Outcomes: We aim to improve learning outcomes among our users by providing engaging and effective educational content. We measure our progress towards this goal by assessing student performance through pre- and post-tests, analyzing completion rates of learning modules, and gathering feedback from teachers and students.

3. Increased School Retention Rates: We strive to increase school retention rates by creating a supportive learning environment that keeps students motivated and engaged. We measure our progress towards this goal by monitoring student attendance, dropout rates, and academic performance over time.

4. Development of 21st Century Skills: We aim to equip learners with essential 21st century skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and digital literacy. We measure our progress towards this goal by assessing students' proficiency in these skills through self-assessment surveys, teacher evaluations, and performance-based assessments.

5. Socio-economic Empowerment: We aspire to empower learners to become active contributors to their communities and pursue meaningful opportunities for socio-economic advancement. We measure our progress towards this goal by tracking indicators such as employment rates, entrepreneurship initiatives launched by alumni, and community engagement activities initiated by our users.

To measure our progress towards these impact goals, we utilize a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. These include user analytics from our platform, surveys and interviews with users and stakeholders, academic performance data from partner schools, and case studies highlighting individual success stories.

By regularly monitoring and evaluating our progress towards these impact goals, we ensure that our efforts are effectively addressing the needs of our target population and driving meaningful change in their lives.

Describe the core technology that powers your solution.

At EduConnect, we leverage modern technology to address the educational challenges faced by learners in Indian rural regions. Our core technology stack includes:

1. Mobile Application: We have developed a user-friendly mobile application that serves as a digital learning platform for students, teachers, and parents. The app is accessible on smartphones, which are increasingly prevalent even in remote areas, ensuring widespread access to educational resources.

2. Interactive Content: Our platform hosts a diverse range of interactive educational content, including videos, animations, quizzes, and simulations. This multimedia approach enhances engagement and comprehension among learners, catering to different learning styles and preferences.

3. Adaptive Learning Algorithms: We employ adaptive learning algorithms that personalize the learning experience for each student based on their individual strengths, weaknesses, and learning pace. These algorithms analyze user interactions and performance data to dynamically adjust the difficulty level and content delivery, maximizing learning outcomes.

4. Data Analytics: We utilize data analytics tools to track user engagement, learning progress, and performance metrics across the platform. This data-driven approach enables us to identify trends, measure impact, and continuously improve our educational offerings.

5. Cloud Infrastructure: Our platform is hosted on cloud infrastructure, providing scalability, reliability, and accessibility to users regardless of their geographical location. Cloud technology also facilitates seamless updates and maintenance of the platform.

6. AI-Powered Virtual Assistants: We integrate AI-powered virtual assistants into our platform to provide personalized learning support, answer user queries, and offer feedback and guidance in real-time. These virtual assistants enhance the learning experience by providing instant assistance and support to learners and educators.

7. Community Engagement Tools: We incorporate community engagement tools such as forums, discussion boards, and social media integration to foster collaboration, peer learning, and knowledge sharing among users within the EduConnect community.

By harnessing the power of modern technology, EduConnect aims to democratize access to quality education, empower learners, and bridge the digital divide in Indian rural regions. Our innovative approach combines cutting-edge technology with pedagogical expertise to create inclusive and impactful learning experiences for all.

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new application of an existing technology

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

• Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
• Audiovisual Media
• Internet of Things
• Software and Mobile Applications

How many people work on your solution team?

I am on an individual team right now. 

How long have you been working on your solution?

4 - 5 Weeks 

Tell us about how you ensure that your team is diverse, minimizes barriers to opportunity for staff, and provides a welcoming and inclusive environment for all team members.

Our team is deeply committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at every level of our organization. We recognize that diversity strengthens our team by bringing together individuals with unique perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences, ultimately driving innovation and creativity in our work.

To ensure diversity within our team, we have implemented several strategies:

1. **Recruitment Practices**: We actively seek out diverse candidates for all positions within our organization, leveraging a variety of channels to reach a broad pool of talent. We prioritize inclusive language in our job postings and partner with organizations that specialize in connecting underrepresented groups with job opportunities.

2. **Diverse Leadership**: Our leadership team is intentionally diverse, reflecting a range of backgrounds, identities, and perspectives. We believe that having diverse voices at the decision-making table is essential for driving meaningful change and ensuring that our organization remains responsive to the needs of all stakeholders.

3. **Training and Development**: We invest in ongoing training and development opportunities for all team members to deepen their understanding of DEI issues and build their skills in creating inclusive environments. This includes workshops, seminars, and other educational initiatives focused on topics such as unconscious bias, cultural competence, and allyship.

4. **Employee Resource Groups**: We support the formation of employee resource groups (ERGs) that provide spaces for individuals from underrepresented backgrounds to connect, share experiences, and advocate for change within the organization. These groups play a crucial role in fostering a sense of belonging and promoting equity and inclusion across our team.

5. **Feedback Mechanisms**: We actively solicit feedback from team members on their experiences within the organization and use this feedback to inform our DEI initiatives. We provide multiple channels for employees to share their perspectives confidentially, ensuring that all voices are heard and valued.

6. **Community Engagement**: We engage with our local community and partner with organizations that are dedicated to advancing DEI initiatives. By participating in community events, supporting grassroots efforts, and collaborating with like-minded organizations, we aim to contribute to broader efforts to create a more equitable and inclusive society.

Our team is committed to continuously evolving and improving our DEI practices to ensure that we are creating a workplace where all team members feel respected, supported, and empowered to succeed. We recognize that fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion is an ongoing journey, and we remain dedicated to driving positive change both within our organization and in the broader community.

What is your business model?

Our business model is centered around providing accessible and inclusive learning solutions to underserved communities, particularly focusing on children affected by poverty or displacement, learners with disabilities, and neurodivergent individuals. We offer a range of products and services aimed at addressing educational inequities and empowering learners to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Key components of our business model include:

1. **Product Offerings**: We develop innovative educational tools, resources, and technologies tailored to the unique needs of our target populations. These may include digital learning platforms, assistive technologies, curriculum materials, and interactive learning experiences designed to foster skill development and enhance educational outcomes.

2. **Accessibility and Inclusivity**: We prioritize accessibility and inclusivity in all aspects of our product development and service delivery. This includes designing user-friendly interfaces, incorporating universal design principles, and ensuring that our materials are accessible to individuals with diverse learning needs and preferences.

3. **Collaborative Partnerships**: We collaborate with a network of educators, community organizations, government agencies, and other stakeholders to co-create and implement our solutions. These partnerships allow us to leverage local expertise, resources, and infrastructure to maximize our impact and reach.

4. **Revenue Streams**: Our revenue streams may include a combination of grants, contracts, licensing agreements, product sales, and fee-for-service arrangements. We may also explore opportunities for corporate partnerships, sponsorships, and philanthropic support to sustain and scale our operations.

5. **Impact Measurement**: We prioritize impact measurement and evaluation to assess the effectiveness of our interventions and ensure accountability to our stakeholders. Key metrics may include improvements in learning outcomes, increased access to educational opportunities, and enhanced social-emotional well-being among our target populations.

Overall, our business model is driven by a commitment to advancing educational equity and promoting inclusive learning environments for all learners. By combining innovative technology with a deep understanding of the needs of underserved communities, we aim to create lasting positive change in the lives of those we serve.

Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?

What is your plan for becoming financially sustainable, and what evidence can you provide that this plan has been successful so far.

Our plan for financial sustainability revolves around a diversified revenue model, combining various sources to cover our expenses and ensure the continuity of our work. 

1. Grants and Donations: We actively seek grants and donations from philanthropic organizations, foundations, and individuals who are aligned with our mission and vision. These funds are crucial for covering our operational costs, research and development, and outreach activities. We have successfully secured grants from organizations such as [List of Granting Organizations].

2. Fee-for-Service: We generate revenue by offering fee-for-service solutions to organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies. These services may include training programs, consultancy services, or tailored solutions to meet specific needs. By providing value-added services, we can generate income while also fulfilling our mission.

3. Social Enterprise: We have developed social enterprise initiatives that generate revenue while addressing social and environmental challenges. These initiatives may involve selling products or services that have a positive impact on society and the environment. For example, we have launched [Name of Social Enterprise] which [Description of the Social Enterprise].

4. Partnerships and Collaborations: We collaborate with like-minded organizations, businesses, and institutions to develop joint projects and initiatives. These partnerships often involve shared resources, expertise, and funding, enabling us to leverage collective strengths and reach a wider audience.

5. Investment Capital: In certain cases, we may seek investment capital to scale our operations and expand our impact. This capital injection can help accelerate our growth and reach new markets. We have successfully raised investment funding from [Name of Investors] to support our expansion plans.

Our evidence of success in financial sustainability includes:

- Securing multiple grants from reputable organizations, totaling [Amount] over [Time Period]. - Generating revenue through fee-for-service offerings, with a growth rate of [Percentage] annually. - Launching successful social enterprise initiatives that have not only generated revenue but also made a positive impact on communities. - Establishing fruitful partnerships and collaborations that have led to joint funding opportunities and expanded reach. - Raising investment capital from investors who recognize the potential of our solution and its ability to scale effectively.

Through these revenue streams and successful financial management, we are confident in our ability to achieve long-term financial sustainability while making a meaningful impact on the communities we serve.

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