Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Citizen writes that we need to measure progress and gather better data to get to the center of the learning crisis around the world. Universal education is a lofty, but important goal.

• How can donors contribute to efforts working to expand access to education around the world? Which programs have proven to be most effective in developing nations?

• Read more on how to pool resources to provide sustainable universal education.

Education represents a chance at a better life and better opportunities. But there is a large distinction between a basic education and a quality one. While a child might be going to school, in developing countries, many kids aren’t actually learning how to read or write. This causes them to drop out simply because they can’t keep up with their class curriculum.

Take 14-year-old Wongani Nyirenda. Wongani grew up in Malawi and watched student after student in his 200-person class drop out of school until only 40 were left in his graduating class at the end of primary school.

The reasons ranged from commitments at home to poor nutrition, to child marriage. But startlingly, of the classmates that dropped out, even at later grades of primary school, many of them cannot read, write, or do basic math, let alone speak English, which they were taught from Grade 2.

Now, during his holidays, Wongani runs a "backyard school" for some of these neighborhood children, who want to learn but are too embarrassed to go back to school or reveal to others how little they understand. They are happy to share this with a peer but Wongani recognizes that he isn’t a teacher and is limited in what support he can provide. He is constantly surprised that they got so far through school without learning the basics. The reality is that they missed out on a basic education, and no one noticed.

Wongani was an exception because he decided early on that school was important to his future and spent years, sometimes on an empty stomach, walking hours to school and working hard with the aim of getting a scholarship to secondary school with a good grade in his final exams.

Read the full article about achieving universal education by Madge Thomas at Global Citizen.