Our Challenge

Access Gains

 

The world has significantly improved access to primary education in the last two decades:

• primary enrollment rates in developing countries reached 91%,

• school age kids out of school halved, and

• gender parity dramatically improved.  

 

This is no small feat.

 

However, quality remains unacceptably poor in many low-income countries,

squandering a devastating amount of human potential in our increasingly global world.

 

If this status quo continues, we all lose.

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Africa

 

Africa is one of the worst affected regions.

 

Of the 97 million children who enter school in Sub-Saharan Africa,

over one third (37 million) will reach adolescence unable to read, write, multiply, or divide.

 

This is particularly urgent because, Africa is home to 1.3 billion people (17% of the world),

and is expected to reach 2.5 billion people by 2050.  

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Uganda

 

In 1997, Uganda was one of the first countries to implement universal primary education,

increasing enrollment 70% in one year from 3.1 million to 5.3 million students,

and to 8.5 million by 2013.

 

We are also one of the youngest countries in the world;

half of our population is below age 15.

 

Despite this progress,

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less than half of 12 year olds are literate (41%) or numerate (45%), and

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just over half of students who start primary school complete it (53%).