Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Citizen brings together various photos of children in several countries around the world accompanied by statistics focusing on global education (or lack thereof).

• How can other countries help enhance global education and increase those statistics of children in school? 

• Read about Door Step School, an organization that is bringing education to India in an effort to increase literacy. 

What do you think of when you imagine school? The answer to that question could differ wildly from person to person, depending where you were born, or what circumstances you grew up in.

What many of us would agree with, however, is that education is a driving force behind social mobility and — globally — behind breaking the cycle of extreme poverty.

Without education, it’s so much harder for a child to grow up into a life that’s any different from their parents’. Without schools, it’s impossible for our world to change for the better.

  • An estimated 8.1 million children are out of school in India, according to UNICEF. Meanwhile the country has a significant gender imbalance when it comes to education. While male literacy is at 75%, female literacy is 54%, according to India-based NGO Tarang .
  • It’s estimated that some 3 million children between 5 and 13 aren’t in school in Sudan — one of the largest number of out-of-school children in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to UNICEF .
  • Schools have borne a significant brunt of the ongoing conflict in Syria, with more than one in three schools either damaged or destroyed, according toUNICEF. Meanwhile, others are being used as collective shelters, or for other purposes. Almost a third of school-age children (between 5 and 17) aren't in school, and a further 1.3 million are at risk of dropping out.

See the photos and read the full article about global education by Imogen Calderwood at Global Citizen