Global Educational Deficits: How a Lack of Basic Skills Inhibits Development Opportunities

Author/s
Sarah Gust
Eric A. Hanushek
Ludger Woessmann
Editor/s
Gudrun Quenzel, Klaus Hurrelmann, Groß Opphoff and Christoph Weber
Published Date
2026
Publication
Handbook of Educational Poverty

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[German] How far is the world from ensuring that every child acquires a minimum level of basic skills? And what would achieving this goal mean for global development? We address these two interrelated questions in a new study (Gust et al., 2024). We use the individual test data from international and regional school performance studies to estimate how many children in each country do not achieve a basic level of competence. We then show the economic costs of these deficits.