The world is facing an urgent learning crisis. The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (the Education Commission) predicts that, by 2030, 825 million children in low- and middle-income countries—half of today’s youth generation—will reach adulthood without the skills they need to thrive in work and life.

More worrisome still, it will take approximately 100 years for the most marginalized youth to achieve the learning levels that the wealthiest enjoy today.

First, in most countries around the world, schools serve some children well and some very poorly. This inequality in how formal education systems develop children’s skills and abilities is found both within countries, between wealthy and poor children, and between countries, between the developed world’s high-income countries and the developing world’s low-income countries.

Second, this 100-year gap only becomes more daunting when you realize that it is between what we consider to be a good and bad education today, and that it does not even take into account the type of education children will need for the future.

But we do know that children will need to be well equipped to face uncertainty and to, among other things, work collaboratively with others to solve problems, something on which the average school does not focus.

Read the full article on education innovations by Rebecca Winthrop, Eileen McGivney, and Adam Barton at Brookings