Education and Skills

Education is the foundation to skills development and jobs, and the surest way out of poverty, empowering generations to earn an income and drive economic growth. For individuals, education promotes employment, earnings, health, and poverty reduction. Globally, there is a 9% increase in hourly earnings for every extra year of schooling. For societies, it drives long-term economic growth, spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion and stability.

Developing countries have made tremendous progress in getting children into the classroom, but investments remain inadequate and learning is not guaranteed. Seven in 10 children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read or understand a simple paragraph by the age of 10. Prolonged school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the learning crisis. If a child cannot read with comprehension by age 10, they are unlikely to become fluent readers. They will fail to thrive in school and will be unable to develop the skills needed to power their careers and economies once they leave school.

Investments in high-quality early childhood development, including basic numeracy, literacy, and socioeconomic skills, are critical to helping today’s children become tomorrow’s workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders. These skills help people become lifelong learners and maintain productivity over their lifetime. Digital skills are also increasingly essential for students to thrive at school and work. Initial teacher training, partnerships with the private sector, and innovative financing will also be essential to helping countries reach their education goals.

The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world. With a $26.4 billion education portfolio in 81 countries, we are improving educational opportunities for 324 million students.

Education Factsheet - April 2026 [PDF]

We are leveraging our technical knowledge and financial partnerships to support countries to invest in education and essential skills required for jobs. Our goal is not only to prepare learners for current jobs but also to help them adapt to future roles. Flexible systems that encourage continuous learning, creativity, critical thinking, and resilience are essential. Collaboration with the private sector, investment in digital infrastructure, and targeted support for vulnerable groups will help ensure that opportunities are accessible to all.

The World Bank’s global education strategy is centered on ensuring learning happens—for everyone, everywhere. Our vision is to ensure that everyone can achieve her or his full potential with access to quality education and lifelong learning.

Our plan to transform education systems and equip people with the skills they need—not just to survive, but to thrive—comprises four strategic areas for accelerating action to strengthen learning and job-relevant skilling:

Strengthen early learning to build a solid foundation of literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills—the building blocks for all other skills.

Keep children in school and ensure they are learning, using tools like better teacher support, adaptive learning technology, and student incentives.

As students move up the education ladder, build job-relevant skills, particularly through industry partnerships that offer hands-on training and curriculum aligned with labor market needs.

Put skills to work by improving access to job placement services, encouraging entrepreneurship, and offering reskilling programs for adults.

Five pillars underpin this strategic approach: prepared and motivated learners; skilled, supported teachers; relevant and accessible learning resources (including technology); safe, inclusive schools; and well-managed, adequately financed education systems. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that every individual has the education, skills, and opportunities needed to access meaningful employment and realize their full potential.

The private sectoralso has a critical role to play in preparing young people for jobs. We are financing innovative approaches to strengthen higher education and creating new training opportunities for young people. This includes partnering with industry to develop dynamic training programs that deliver the right skills at the right time, including on-the-job experience, advanced certifications, and facilitating movement up the job ladder.

To meet these challenges, we will identify, scale up, and replicate successful programs and interventions. Monitoring outcomes and financing based on results will also help shift the focus from inputs to outcomes. Leveraging digital technology and AI can help expand education access, enhance teaching and learning, and monitor and assess performance.

Our support to countries covers the entire learning and skills development cycle, to help shape resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone.

In Nigeria, the $75 million Edo Basic Education Sector and Skills Transformation project, 2020-2024, trained 16,000 teachers and drastically reduced teacher absences. Covering 97 percent of schools in the state, the project equipped teachers with handheld tablets with structured lesson plans, while coaches used classroom observation tools to provide individualized feedback.

Through the $235 million School Sector Development Program in Nepal, 2017-2022, the number of children staying in school until grade 12 nearly tripled, and the number of out-of-school children fell by almost seven percent.

From 2017-2023, the $50 million Strengthening of State Universities in  Chile  project helped reduce dropouts at state universities: The third-year dropout rate fell by almost 10 percent from 2018-2022.

Through the $152.80 million Yemen Restoring Education and Learning Emergency project, 2020-2024, almost 600,000 students benefited from the project’s efforts to maintain access to basic education, improve learning conditions in schools, and strengthen education sector capacity.

The $87 million Providing an Education of Quality in Haiti project, 2016-2023, supported about 380 schools in southern Haiti by providing textbooks, meals, and training support to 70,000 students, 3,000 teachers, and 300 school directors. It also repaired 19 national schools damaged by the 2021 earthquake, restoring safe access for 5,500 students.

In 2013, just 5% of the poorest households in  Uzbekistan  had children enrolled in preschools. Thanks to the Improving Pre-Primary and General Secondary Education Project, by 2019, around 100,000 children benefited from a half-day program in 2,420 rural kindergartens, comprising over 90% of rural kindergartens in the country.

The $95.5 million Higher Education Improvement project in Cambodia aims to improve the quality and relevance of higher education and research, especially in STEM. The project has boosted learning opportunities for more than 128,000 students, over half of them women, providing them with practical, in-demand skills that make them more competitive in the labor market.

In Jordan, the $112 million Private Sector Employment and Skills Program connects job seekers with firms and training opportunities through a digital platform. Over 125,000 job seekers (over half women) and 1,500 firms have already benefited, with 52,000 job seekers hired in formal private sector jobs.

A debt-for-development swap is enabling Côte d’Ivoire to replace expensive debt with cheaper financing, improving the country’s debt profile and generating significant fiscal savings—most of which is being directed to the country’s education sector. The operation is the first of its kind supported by the World Bank Group.

In addition to working closely with governments in our client countries, the World Bank also works at the global, regional, and local levels with a range of technical, operational, and donor partners, including foundations, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, think tanks, bilaterals, and other multilateral organizations. Some examples of our most recent global partnerships include:

Coalition for Foundational Learning

The World Bank is working closely with UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, and the Gates Foundation as the Coalition for Foundational Learning to advocate and provide technical support to ensure foundational learning.  These partners promote and endorse the Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning, a global network of countries committed to halving the global share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 by 2030.

Early Learning Partnership

The Early Learning Partnership (ELP) is a multi-donor trust fund, housed at the World Bank.  ELP leverages World Bank strengths—a global presence, access to policymakers and strong technical analysis—to improve early learning opportunities and outcomes for young children around the world.

The program helps World Bank teams and countries get the information they need to make the case to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD), design effective policies and deliver impactful programs.

Learning Data Compact

UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank  have agreed to a Learning Data Compact, a commitment to ensure that all countries, especially low-income countries, have at least one quality measure of learning by 2025, supporting coordinated efforts to strengthen national assessment systems.

Learning Poverty Indicator

A partnership with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics was launched in 2019 to help countries strengthen their learning assessment systems, better monitor what students are learning in internationally comparable ways and improve the breadth and quality of global data on education.

EdTech Hub

Supported by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, in partnership with the Gates Foundation, the EdTech Hub aims to improve the quality of EdTech investments.

Tertiary Education and Skills global program

The Tertiary Education and Skills global program, launched with support from the Mastercard Foundation, aims to prepare youth and adults for the future of work by improving access to relevant, quality, equitable reskilling and post-secondary education opportunities.  It is designed to reframe, reform, and rebuild tertiary education and skills systems for the digital and green transformation.

Boosting Skills Development for Jobs

Skills development is increasingly central to education and labor market transformations driven by global megatrends such as automation, climate action, digitalization, and demographic shifts. These forces are reshaping the nature of work, requiring education and workforce systems to become more personalized, accessible, and continuous.

Foundational skills help today’s children become tomorrow’s productive people

Foundational learning, which includes basic literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills, is the foundation for a life of learning.  They also foster social and emotional growth, cognitive development, and civic engagement.

Education Contact

Lillian Foo
lfoo@worldbankgroup.org