Girl and teacher smile as they look at the blackboard, schoolmates in the background.

Education

For any child, education can open doors to the future that would otherwise be locked tight. But it’s not just about the future—children with healthy learning environments are better protected from exploitation here and now. Girls, especially, are safer from abuse and early marriage.

invested

$35.5 million

focused on Education

101 programs

people reached

1,793,942
Impact
$20

in benefits to society have been generated for every dollar invested in our Unlock Literacy programs

2019-2021
Change

In Kasai, DRC, grade 3 and 5 students able to read with comprehension increased from

27% to 58%DRC | 2020-2023
Progress

150,522children attended in-school or after-school literacy activities.

Progress

97,442children received school supplies and resources for their education including books, backpacks, uniforms and bicycles.

Progress

196,792school supplies were made available to schools and communities.

Connected Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goal 04 logo: Quality EducationSustainable Development Goal 05 logo: Gender EqualitySustainable Development Goal 08 logo: Decent work and economic growth

Explore our investments and results

Explore our investments and results options

Real impact measured

Unlock Literacy is one of World Vision’s core program models in the education sector. In partnership with schools and communities, we use this approach to help primary school-age children improve their reading fluency and comprehension.

 

Based on a recent analysis, we can now say with confidence that Unlock Literacy is making a real impact—as a model, it is effective and delivering long-term benefits.

 

  • The literacy gains from our Unlock Literacy programs were comparable to adding two years of schooling, on average, for the over 221,000 children that participated over the past three years.
  • For every dollar invested in Unlock Literacy programs, $20 in economic benefits are being generated back to society, such as increases in lifetime earnings for the children who participated.

 

Read the lessons learned from our cost-benefit analysis to understand how we reached this conclusion.

Videos

An image of children sitting on the ground in a classroom, writing in workbooks.

Global Challenges

Educating children amid rapid global change

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) convened the first Transforming Education Summit in 2022, responding to the triple crisis of quality, relevance, and equity and inclusion in education. At the start of the 2022 school year, 244 million children were out of school. Meanwhile, the students in school were often not learning the basics, with education systems unable to equip children with the values, knowledge and skills needed to thrive in today’s complex world.

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Global disparities in early childhood development (ECD)

Good quality ECD programs unlock the potential of young learners, set them on the right path to socialization, and give them pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills needed for successful learning in primary school. As few as 21 per cent of children in low-income countries are enrolled in ECD programmes, experiencing inequalities of access and quality because of socio-economic status, disability and geographic factors.

 

The divide between the haves and the have-nots persists and is becoming worse, despite school being one of the most important spaces for equalizing opportunities. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 40 per cent of children have experienced a positive and stimulating home learning environment, compared to 90 per cent of children in Europe and North America. Quality ECD remains consistently unreliable and often low quality, rendering the experience of young children less than positive and optimal for their holistic development. This makes the need to focus on effective, quality ECD even more critical.

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Barriers to quality primary and secondary education

An estimated 244 million children aged 6-18 were out of school in 2022, with 118.5 million being girls. Estimates show a slowdown in the global progress to reduce the number of out-of-school children. Regional disparities still persist, with the numbers of out-of-school children increasing in sub-Saharan Africa (98 million) and still very high in Central and Southern Asia (85 million). If trends continue, the SDG 4 of quality education for all by 2030 risks not being achieved.

 

The barriers to children’s education are numerous. Families facing poverty and food insecurity may rely on their children, especially boys, to support the family through agricultural work or child labour. Girls will skip school and often drop out if their schools lack adequate sanitation facilities and menstrual hygiene management resources. Education systems need to be responsive to the unique learning needs of girls, and address policies that are barriers for pregnant or young mothers re-entering and finishing school. Even as global school enrolment rates equalize for girls and boys, girls’ completion rates remain lower in low-income countries.

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Technical and vocational edica

Globally, 267 million young people are unemployed or underemployed, with many lacking the skills needed to enter the workforce. This leaves the door open for harmful survival and coping behaviours, including violence, drugs, migration, trafficking, anti-social habits, depression or suicide.

 

Many factors prevent youth from being fully engaged economically, such as low education, mental health challenges, a lack of access to life skills opportunities, or technical and vocational education and training (TVET). They may also experience the stigma of coming from impoverished or violent communities, and inadequate social and emotional support to overcome their challenges.

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Underfunding to education in emergencies

When children living in emergency contexts are asked what they most need, their response is often to continue their education. Education protects against trauma, injury and death during a crisis but also against repeat future threats to child well-being. Safe and nurturing learning opportunities provide a return to familiar routines, instill hope for the future and mitigate the psychosocial impact of violence and displacement. The promise of Sustainable Development Goal 4, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030, will not be achieved without greater commitment to investing in, prioritizing, and protecting education, particularly in conflict and crisis contexts.

 

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 127 million primary and secondary school-age children and young people living in crisis-affected countries were out of school in 2019. In 2021, only 2.9 per cent of global humanitarian financing went to education, considerably less than the UN’s target of four per cent. In response to this, Education Cannot Wait’s #222MillionDreams campaign in 2023 engaged key partners (including World Vision), donors and champions worldwide to raise awareness of the urgent need to support education for 222 million crisis-affected children around the world. It called for new funding and political commitments of US$1.5 billion. More than 45 high-profile leaders from the United Nations system, governments, civil society and the private sector joined the campaign, resulting in significant new funding commitments to education in emergencies.

Please see our Annual Results Report for a full list of references

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Two young girls smile at each other as they stand in a grass field with a bicycle.

Approach and Strategy

Our Goal

Girls and boys have the knowledge and skills to lead fulfilling, productive lives

Work with children and their families from birth to stimulate brain development and learning using play-based approaches
Support children to achieve foundational literacy skills, especially children in fragile contexts
Equip adolescents and youth with skills to earn a living and continue their education/training
Influence governments to provide improved, gender-transformative and inclusive education services
Partner with communities to address social, cultural and gender/inclusion-related barriers to learning

World Vision provides access to gender-responsive, equitable and inclusive education in safe and nurturing learning environments for millions of children and youth. We support those who are most marginalized and hardest to reach, such as refugees and displaced children, and learners with disabilities.

 

At the household level, with the support of teachers and volunteers, we train parents and caregivers in child-centred learning strategies that help girls and boys develop pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills, reading fluency and comprehension by the end of primary school. Children also develop their cognitive, language, social, emotional and physical skills starting from infancy. Our life skills and empowerment curriculum prepares youth and adolescents for their future through skills training, entrepreneurship programs, and connections to vocational training and employment.

 

At the community level, our gender approaches address the barriers to education that girls especially experience, including norms, attitudes and behaviours that prevent them from attending or staying in school. At the same time, we train teachers in child-centred, gender-responsive and inclusive teaching methods. Our education and technology innovations support the development and use of learning technologies to enhance the goals of foundational literacy and improved student learning outcomes, train teachers to integrate technology into their teaching practices and build IT skills for all students, including those with disabilities.

 

At the systemic level, through education advocacy with governments and global education stakeholders we work to transform and strengthen education systems. Through education research, we work with distinguished academic and research partners to generate findings on best practices, innovations and gaps in our programming. We share our data and evidence with various education audiences.

 

In fragile contexts, we adapt and contextualize our core approaches to meet the needs of refugee and displaced children in mobile populations whose education has been disrupted and who may be traumatized by conflict. We advocate with governments to fund or provide learners with educational services. Social emotional learning, mental health and psychosocial support are embedded in our education programming for children affected by crisis, conflict and emergencies to help them cope with trauma and stress.

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A white jeep driving through a muddy path, featuring a rainbow and trees in the background.

Investments and Results

In 2023, $35.5 million was invested in 101 programs that focused primarily on education approaches, reaching 481,631 girls, 475,438 boys, 422,881 women and 413,992 men. Education has seen a marked shift toward more fragile programming compared to last year’s investment driven by work in Lebanon and Syria.

Education continues to be a core pillar of our work in developing contexts, and most of our education investments continue to flow through this programming type.

 

In early education, we highlight the continuous increase in engagement with caregivers supporting young children’s early development, especially through the Learning Roots model. We continue to support the establishment of early learning centres, including institutions and at-home centres that support local neighbourhoods.

 

In basic education, Unlock Literacy and community-based literacy interventions continue to support children in early primary grades through primary education with increases in the number of children participating in after- and in-school activities to support reading development. Engagement numbers for caregivers and other educational staff are also up, which we expect will increase the sustainability of the changes to which literacy programs contribute. Donated gift-in-kind school resources show a mixed trend, with reading materials trending down while other school supplies are trending up partially due to variations in materials received through gift-in kind donations and local strategies.

 

For secondary and vocational training, trends are also mixed. Indicators for vocational training are moving up, driven by DRC’s country strategy in multiple program areas, but down for life skill training due to the closing of multiple program areas in India. In 2022 India’s contribution to life skill training represented 39 per cent of the portfolio, while this year no such training occurred as only minimal programming was possible.

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A wide-shot image of two people wearing backpacks, looking up at a massive green mountain area.

Progress

Change

Efforts put in by families and communities over the past several years have contributed to measurable positive change. Here are some recent education examples.

Stories

Three inquisitive young boys in blue school uniforms crowd around a laptop computer.

In 2019, Rwanda shifted its official language for school instruction from Kinyarwanda to English. An innovative education research project with World Vision and the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP) at Concordia University is helping both teachers and students build proficiency in teaching and learning in English.

Read more(link opens in new tab/window)
A man in a World Vision vest wears a protective mask while a line of children, wearing colourful masks and holding learning materials, look on.

Play-based learning is an ideal learning approach to foster literacy among children, especially for those impacted by conflict. Play is more than just an alternative route to learning; it's a transformative tool for well-being, cultivating hope amid adversity.

Read more(link opens in new tab/window)
A woman wearing a World Vision vest leans over to help a girl who is writing on paper.

One-third of children in Lebanon are out of school. Most are Syrian refugees or migrants. World Vision is fighting to help children prevail with their learning—despite the immense odds. We’re assisting girls and boys in danger of dropping out. To do this, we partner with a local agency supported by the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund.

Read more(link opens in new tab/window)
Unless otherwise stated, data presented on this page reflects the most up-to-date results of World Vision Canada programs reported between October 2022 and September 2023, and any previous fiscal years available. Previously reported data may not match the current presentation as we continuously receive and refine data from our programs. If you have any questions, kindly reach out to us.