Education is a foundation for good jobs and the surest way out of poverty. We know a good education equips learners with important foundational skills—literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional competencies—which are essential for work and life. These skills help today’s children become tomorrow’s productive workers and enable workers to reskill or upskill later in life.
Investing in education is also an economic imperative for individual prosperity and overall economic growth. Evidence shows that more education leads to better employment, higher earnings, and faster economic growth. Individuals with post-secondary education consistently land better jobs. Each additional year of education boosts a person’s future earnings by about 10%. And human capital, including education and health, accounts for half of the difference in income per capita between countries.
Yet, the promise of good education remains out of reach for far too many.
A growing skills crisis
Today, the world faces a deepening skills crisis. Nearly 40% of children aged 3 to 6 lack access to preschool—critical years for developing the cognitive and emotional skills that underpin lifelong learning. For those who do make it to school, learning outcomes remain shockingly low: 70% of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a paragraph by age 10.
The consequences extend beyond the classroom. The global workforce is on the brink of major disruption. Rapid advances in technology are changing the nature of work, demanding new digital and cognitive skills. By 2030, an estimated 60% of workers will need retraining to meet the demands of a changing job market.
This is happening alongside major demographic and technological shifts. Africa’s youth population is projected to grow by 40% by 2050, making smart investments in education a top priority.
A blueprint for action
To tackle these challenges, the World Bank Group has laid out an ambitious plan to transform education systems and equip people with the skills they need—not just to survive, but to thrive.
The plan comprises four strategic areas for accelerating action to strengthen early learning and job-relevant skilling:
First, strengthen early learning to build a solid foundation. Next, keep children in school and ensure they are learning, using tools like better teacher support, adaptive learning technology, and student incentives. Then, 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. Finally, put skills to work by improving access to job placement services, encouraging entrepreneurship, and offering reskilling programs for adults. Ultimately, the goal is to prepare young people to enter the workforce with the learning and skills to succeed. Our vision is to ensure that every individual has the education, skills, and opportunities needed to access meaningful employment and realize their full potential.
But no one can do this alone.
Partnering with the private sector
The private sector has a critical role to play in preparing young people for the jobs of today and tomorrow. The Bank, through its private sector arm—the International Finance Corporation—will maximize our impact by financing innovative approaches to strengthen higher education and create new training and lifelong learning opportunities for young people and adults.
That includes investing in edtech solutions that extend access and improve learning outcomes, and collaborating with higher education institutions to boost employability. It also means partnering with industry to develop dynamic training programs that deliver the right skills at the right time, including on-the-job practical experience, advanced certification plans to guarantee skills recognition and transferability, and facilitating movement up the job ladder.
Scaling what works
To meet these challenges, the Bank Group will also need to identify, scale up, and replicate successful programs and interventions. For example, in Bangladesh, a project has provided training and career counseling for wage employment to 280,000 youth. In Africa, the Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence (ACE) Program, designed to address Africa’s critical skills gaps in STEM, agriculture, health, environment, and education, has established 81 centers of excellence across 50 universities in 20 countries, significantly expanding Africa’s capacity for postgraduate education and applied research, and improving the quality and relevance of education and training programs. The successful program just marked its 10th anniversary. In Chile, the IFC worked with Santo Tomás, one of the country’s leading private education institutions, to develop a tailored career services delivery framework for its students in its university, technical, and vocational segments, among other things. These efforts have contributed to better higher education access in Chile, enhanced graduation and employability rates, and expanded opportunities for women, people from lower-income backgrounds, and working parents.
Monitoring outcomes and financing based on results will also help shift the focus from inputs to outcomes. To do this, investing in data collection will be key. An important opportunity also lies in leveraging digital technology and AI, which offer tools that have the potential to expand education access, enhance teaching and learning, and monitor and assess performance. It will also be critical to support broad-based digital skilling efforts, including media literacy.
The plan focuses on fast-track interventions that have shown success, thinking creatively to meet new challenges, and always staying focused on people and their potential.
The World Bank Group will work at scale as one integrated institution—leveraging multi-sector expertise, innovative financing, and evidence-based solutions. That includes support for governance reforms, long-term investments, and new tools like debt-for-development swaps to mobilize resources, such as the recent Cote d’Ivoire debt swap, which has freed up funds to improve education across the country. We are working on an implementation plan to put all this into action and will share more details once this is finalized.