education is the key to future success

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Top 8 Reasons Why Education is the Key to Success

Updated: February 2, 2024

Published: April 19, 2019

You may have heard the saying that education is the key to success, but it’s really true. In fact, there are eight solid reasons to believe that pursuing education beyond your high school degree in the 21st century will make you more attractive to potential employers and ultimately become more successful.

1. Education gives you the skills that companies are looking for

As you progress through a college degree, you’ll learn how to manage your time; how to juggle several tasks at the same time, how to interact with all kinds of people, and new skills that companies are looking for now. At the University of the People (UoP), for example, faculty come from all over the globe and are prepared to teach those cutting-edge skills that companies are seeking as they look for new hires who will carry their businesses forward through the 21st century. In short, a real education today means that the institution offering a program of study provides skills that can be applied immediately once the student graduates and becomes part of the workforce

2. You’ll form networks and meet new people

Attending college isn’t just about completing courses and meeting other students. A successful, viable institution of higher learning has partners, affiliates, alumni, and other entities that can become a part of your professional network once you join a university community. Nowadays, when you pursue your education, most universities will show you how to become part of an  online community where you have plenty of opportunities to engage with other students, thinkers, degree-seekers, and problem-solvers like yourself.

As you proceed, you’ll gain a clearer sense of your own ideas and values. And when you’re finished with school, you’ll find that businesses in today’s global society are looking for people who know how to be a part of an online community and can communicate the company brand to their clients.

3. You’ll keep up with changing technologies

When you enroll in an academic program offered by University of the People or another accredited university, you engage in learning while using technologies that hiring companies are looking for. You gain valuable digital experience, allowing your education to provide you with the key to success.

4. You’ll define your career interests.

When you pursue an education in a particular degree, you’ll find that you’ll learn more about your professional interests, what you plan to do with your degree, and what the career options are. For instance, your choice of higher education provides you with resources, contacts, networks, and many other influences that allow you to explore the details of your career choice. You’ll have a much clearer notion of what you want to do, what you are capable of doing, and how to get a actually get a job in your field after completing your education.

5. You’ll develop time management skills.

Even if you are pursuing an education full-time, you may still need to work and manage the household budget, along with many other challenges. In short, because life requires that we wear many hats even under the best of circumstances, the process of getting an education automatically makes you focus on honing those coveted time management skills one of the sure-fire keys to success desired by top hiring companies all over the world.

6. You won’t be left out

Up until the first half of the 20th century, societies across the globe were vastly more rural and much less interconnected. Many people only received a minimal education without pursuing a high school degree. Today, times have changed. Digital technologies dominate virtually every aspect of our lives, making it essential to have the basic high school requirements for working with various technologies, communicating with written and verbal skills, and reaching out to others around the globe. However, a high school degree these days is just the minimum you need to consider entering the workforce in most instances. In fact, between 2019 and 2029, most of the jobs available will require a bachelor’s degree .

For all these reasons, acquiring education beyond the high school level is the key to success. We live in an ever-connected society where opportunities and expectations for knowledge and performance increase every day. And that’s why you don’t want to be left behind when there are real resources available to help you succeed. University of the People understands these growing needs and opportunities, and that’s why it makes learning tuition-free and accessible.

To go back to school through a completely online program offered by a US-accredited institution, check out the University of the People’s academic programs ! University of the People offers associate, bachelor, and master’s programs, all of which are online and tuition-free. When it comes to receiving a quality education without the huge price tag, University of the People is for people like you!

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What Is Education? Insights from the World's Greatest Minds

Forty thought-provoking quotes about education..

Posted May 12, 2014 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

As we seek to refine and reform today’s system of education , we would do well to ask, “What is education?” Our answers may provide insights that get to the heart of what matters for 21st century children and adults alike.

It is important to step back from divisive debates on grades, standardized testing, and teacher evaluation—and really look at the meaning of education. So I decided to do just that—to research the answer to this straightforward, yet complex question.

Looking for wisdom from some of the greatest philosophers, poets, educators, historians, theologians, politicians, and world leaders, I found answers that should not only exist in our history books, but also remain at the core of current education dialogue.

In my work as a developmental psychologist, I constantly struggle to balance the goals of formal education with the goals of raising healthy, happy children who grow to become contributing members of families and society. Along with academic skills, the educational journey from kindergarten through college is a time when young people develop many interconnected abilities.

As you read through the following quotes, you’ll discover common threads that unite the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical aspects of education. For me, good education facilitates the development of an internal compass that guides us through life.

Which quotes resonate most with you? What images of education come to your mind? How can we best integrate the wisdom of the ages to address today’s most pressing education challenges?

If you are a middle or high school teacher, I invite you to have your students write an essay entitled, “What is Education?” After reviewing the famous quotes below and the images they evoke, ask students to develop their very own quote that answers this question. With their unique quote highlighted at the top of their essay, ask them to write about what helps or hinders them from getting the kind of education they seek. I’d love to publish some student quotes, essays, and images in future articles, so please contact me if students are willing to share!

What Is Education? Answers from 5th Century BC to the 21 st Century

• The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. — Jean Piaget, 1896-1980, Swiss developmental psychologist, philosopher
• An education isn't how much you have committed to memory , or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. — Anatole France, 1844-1924, French poet, novelist
• Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. — Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013, South African President, philanthropist
• The object of education is to teach us to love beauty. — Plato, 424-348 BC, philosopher mathematician
• The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education — Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968, pastor, activist, humanitarian
• Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, physicist
• It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. — Aristotle, 384-322 BC, Greek philosopher, scientist
• Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life. — Brigham Young, 1801-1877, religious leader
• Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer – into a selflessness which links us with all humanity. — Nancy Astor, 1879-1964, American-born English politician and socialite
• Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939, Irish poet
• Education is freedom . — Paulo Freire, 1921-1997, Brazilian educator, philosopher
• Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. — John Dewey, 1859-1952, philosopher, psychologist, education reformer
• Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. — George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, scientist, botanist, educator
• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer, poet
• The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. — Sydney J. Harris, 1917-1986, journalist
• Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. — Malcolm Forbes, 1919-1990, publisher, politician
• No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. — Emma Goldman, 1869 – 1940, political activist, writer
• Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. — John W. Gardner, 1912-2002, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson
• Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. — Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer, theologian, poet, philosopher
• Education is the movement from darkness to light. — Allan Bloom, 1930-1992, philosopher, classicist, and academician
• Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. -- Daniel J. Boorstin, 1914-2004, historian, professor, attorney
• The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. — William S. Burroughs, 1914-1997, novelist, essayist, painter
• The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. -- Robert M. Hutchins, 1899-1977, educational philosopher
• Education is all a matter of building bridges. — Ralph Ellison, 1914-1994, novelist, literary critic, scholar
• What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul. — Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, English essayist, poet, playwright, politician
• Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. — Malcolm X, 1925-1965, minister and human rights activist
• Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students. — Solomon Ortiz, 1937-, former U.S. Representative-TX
• The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. — Plutarch, 46-120AD, Greek historian, biographer, essayist
• Education is a shared commitment between dedicated teachers, motivated students and enthusiastic parents with high expectations. — Bob Beauprez, 1948-, former member of U.S. House of Representatives-CO
• The most influential of all educational factors is the conversation in a child’s home. — William Temple, 1881-1944, English bishop, teacher
• Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them. — John Ruskin, 1819-1900, English writer, art critic, philanthropist
• Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete. — Joyce Meyer, 1943-, Christian author and speaker
• Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. — B.F. Skinner , 1904-1990, psychologist, behaviorist, social philosopher
• The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers rather than to fill it with the accumulation of others. — Tyron Edwards, 1809-1894, theologian
• Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength of the nation. — John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, 35 th President of the United States
• Education is like a lantern which lights your way in a dark alley. — Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, 1918-2004, President of the United Arab Emirates for 33 years
• When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts. — Dalai Lama, spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism
• Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence . — Robert Frost, 1874-1963, poet
• The secret in education lies in respecting the student. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, essayist, lecturer, and poet
• My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance, but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. — Maya Angelou, 1928-, author, poet

©2014 Marilyn Price-Mitchell. All rights reserved. Please contact for permission to reprint.

Marilyn Price-Mitchell, Ph.D., is an Institute for Social Innovation Fellow at Fielding Graduate University and author of Tomorrow’s Change Makers.

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"The future of education is here"

About the author, antónio guterres.

António Guterres is the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations, who took office on 1st January 2017.

Education is the key to personal development and the future of societies.

It unlocks opportunities and narrows inequalities.

It is the bedrock of informed, tolerant societies, and a primary driver of sustainable development.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the largest disruption of education ever. 

In mid-July, schools were closed in more than 160 countries, affecting over 1 billion students.

At least 40 million children worldwide have missed out on education in their critical pre-school year.

And parents, especially women, have been forced to assume heavy care burdens in the home.

Despite the delivery of lessons by radio, television and online, and the best efforts of teachers and parents, many students remain out of reach.

Learners with disabilities, those in minority or disadvantaged communities, displaced and refugee students and those in remote areas are at highest risk of being left behind.

And even for those who can access distance learning, success depends on their living conditions, including the fair distribution of domestic duties.

We are at a defining moment for the world’s children and young people.

We already faced a learning crisis before the pandemic.

More than 250 million school-age children were out of school.

And only a quarter of secondary school children in developing countries were leaving school with basic skills.

Now we face a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress, and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.

The knock-on effects on child nutrition, child marriage and gender equality, among others, are deeply concerning.

This is the backdrop to the Policy Brief I am launching today, together with a new campaign with education partners and United Nations agencies called ‘Save our Future’.

The decisions that governments and partners take now will have lasting impact on hundreds of millions of young people, and on the development prospects of countries for decades to come.

This Policy Brief calls for action in four key areas:

First, reopening schools.

Once local transmission of COVID-19 is under control, getting students back into schools and learning institutions as safely as possible must be a top priority.

We have issued guidance to help governments in this complex endeavour.

It will be essential to balance health risks against risks to children’s education and protection, and to factor in the impact on women’s labour force participation.

Consultation with parents, carers, teachers and young people is fundamental.

Second, prioritizing education in financing decisions.

Before the crisis hit, low and middle-income countries already faced an education funding gap of $1.5 trillion dollars a year.

This gap has now grown.

Education budgets need to be protected and increased.

And it is critical that education is at the heart of international solidarity efforts, from debt management and stimulus packages to global humanitarian appeals and official development assistance.

Third, targeting the hardest to reach.  

Education initiatives must seek to reach those at greatest risk of being left behind -- people in emergencies and crises; minority groups of all kinds; displaced people and those with disabilities.

They should be sensitive to the specific challenges faced by girls, boys, women and men, and should urgently seek to bridge the digital divide.

Fourth, the future of education is here.

We have a generational opportunity to reimagine education.

We can take a leap towards forward-looking systems that deliver quality education for all as a springboard for the Sustainable Development Goals.

To achieve this, we need investment in digital literacy and infrastructure, an evolution towards learning how to learn, a rejuvenation of life-long learning and strengthened links between formal and non-formal education.

And we need to draw on flexible delivery methods, digital technologies and modernized curricula while ensuring sustained support for teachers and communities.

As the world faces unsustainable levels of inequality, we need education – the great equalizer – more than ever.  

We must take bold steps now, to create inclusive, resilient, quality education systems fit for the future.

• Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond

S7-Episode 2: Bringing Health to the World

“You see, we're not doing this work to make ourselves feel better. That sort of conventional notion of what a do-gooder is. We're doing this work because we are totally convinced that it's not necessary in today's wealthy world for so many people to be experiencing discomfort, for so many people to be experiencing hardship, for so many people to have their lives and their livelihoods imperiled.”

Dr. David Nabarro has dedicated his life to global health. After a long career that’s taken him from the horrors of war torn Iraq, to the devastating aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he is still spurred to action by the tremendous inequalities in global access to medical care.

“The thing that keeps me awake most at night is the rampant inequities in our world…We see an awful lot of needless suffering.”

:: David Nabarro interviewed by Melissa Fleming

Brazilian ballet pirouettes during pandemic

Ballet Manguinhos, named for its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the stage after a long absence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It counts 250 children and teenagers from the favela as its performers. The ballet group provides social support in a community where poverty, hunger and teen pregnancy are constant issues.

Radio journalist gives the facts on COVID-19 in Uzbekistan

The pandemic has put many people to the test, and journalists are no exception. Coronavirus has waged war not only against people's lives and well-being but has also spawned countless hoaxes and scientific falsehoods.

Transforming lives through education

Transforming education to change our world

UNESCO provides global and regional leadership on all aspects of education from pre-school to higher education and throughout life. It works through its Member States and brings together governments, the private sector and civil society to strengthen education systems worldwide in order to deliver quality education for all. As a thought leader it publishes landmark reports and data for policy-makers, implements programmes on the ground from teacher training to emergency responses and establishes and monitors norms and standards for all to guide educational developments.  

Right to education in a ruined world

Southern Italy, 1950. Three children are huddled around a makeshift desk made out of reclaimed wood, scribbling in their notebooks. The classroom has an earthen floor and roughly clad walls. The children’s clothes are ragged. They are wearing home-made slippers because shoes and the money to buy them are rare commodities in the war-ravaged south. 

Although World War II ended five years earlier, the scars of conflict are still visible in this black and white photo from a report commissioned by UNESCO from legendary photojournalist David Seymour. 

At the time when the photograph was taken, less than half of Italy’s population could read and write and just a third completed primary school. 70 years later, these children’s grandchildren enjoy an over 99% literacy rate. In the wake of the war, UNESCO led a major education campaign in Europe to respond to the education crisis, to rebuild links between people and to strengthen democracy and cultural identities after years of conflict. The emphasis then was on the fundamental learning skill of literacy.  

Immediately after World War two UNESCO led a major education campaign in Europe to respond to the education crisis, fix and rebuild links between people and strengthen cultural identities after years of conflict. David Seymour’s images show the extent of the fight against illiteracy led by the post-war Italian government and non-governmental organisations backed by UNESCO. 

Looking back at the deprived surroundings Seymour captured in his photo essay, one can see the extent of success. Seventy-one years later, those children’s grandchildren enjoy a 99.16 per cent literacy rate. 

Similar programmes were held across the globe, for instance in devastated Korea where UNESCO led a major education textbook production programme in the 1950s. Several decades after, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Korean citizen Ban Ki-Moon expressed the importance of such a programme for the country's development: 

The flowering of literacy

In a Korea devastated by war and where UNESCO led a major education textbook production programme in the 1950s, one student, Ban Ki-Moon, now Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, saw the world open up to him through the pages of a UNESCO textbook. Several decades after, he expressed the importance of such a programme for his country's development on the world stage.

Reaching the remote villages perched atop the Andes in Peru during the early 1960s wasn’t without its challenges for UNESCO’s technical assistance programme to bring literacy to disadvantaged communities. While Peru’s economy was experiencing a prolonged period of expansion, not all Peruvians were able to benefit from this growth which was limited to the industrialised coast. Instead, Andes communities were grappling with poverty, illiteracy and depopulation. 

Today, the number of non-literate youths and adults around the world has decreased dramatically, while the global literacy rate for young people aged 15-24 years has reached 92 %. These astonishing successes reflect improved access to schooling for younger generations.

Photojournalist Paul Almasy has left us the poignant image of a barefoot older man while he’s deciphering a newspaper thanks to his newfound literacy skills.

The classroom at the UNESCO mission in Chinchera, in the Andean highlands of Peru, had allowed the old man to discover the world beyond his tiny village.

However, there are still huge obstacles to overcome. Data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 it is still the case that globally more than 450 million children - six out of 10 - have failed to gain basic literacy skills by the age of 10. And beyond literacy programmes, massive investments in skills for work and life, teacher training, and education policies are needed in a world that is changing ever faster. 

Global priorities

Africa, home to the world’s youngest population, is not on track to achieve the targets of SDG 4. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expected to account for 25% of the school-age population by 2030, up from 12% in 1990, yet it remains the region with the highest out-of-school rates. Girls are more likely to be permanently excluded from education than boys. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated inequalities, with 89% of learners not having access to computers and 82% lacking internet access to benefit from distance learning. The lack of trained teachers further jeopardizes progress towards SDG4: pre-pandemic only 64% of whom were trained at the primary level and 58% at the lower secondary level.

As part of its Priority Africa Flagship 2022 – 2029 , UNESCO has launched Campus Africa: Reinforcing Higher Education in Africa with the objective to build integrated, inclusive, and quality tertiary education systems and institutions, for the development of inclusive and equitable societies on the continent.

Gender    

There are immense gender gaps when it comes to access, learning achievement and education, most often at the expense of girls and women. It is estimated that some 127 million girls are out of school around the world. For many girls and women around the world, the classroom remains an elusive, often forbidden space. UNESCO monitors the educational rights of girls and women around the world and shares information on the legal progress toward securing the right to education for women in all countries. Despite important progress in recent decades, the right to education is still far from being a reality for many girls and women. Discriminatory practices stand in the way of girls and women fully exercising their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from education. And while girls have difficulty with access, boys face increasing challenges, and particularly disengagement , from education at later stages. Globally only 88 men are enrolled in tertiary education for every 100 women. In 73 countries, fewer boys than girls are enrolled in upper-secondary education.

UNESCO's Her Atlas analyzes the legal frameworks of nearly 200 states to track which laws are enabling---or inhibiting---the right to education for girls and women. This interactive world map uses a color-coded scoring system to monitor 12 indicators of legal progress towards gender equality in the right to education.

Monitoring the right to education for girls and women

What makes me proud is that soon I will finish building a new house. I have already been able to buy a cow and I will soon be able to have another pond

Madagascar’s coastal Atsinanana region is known for its lush rainforests and fish breeding.

The country has a young population, but only one out of three children can complete primary education. Among those who are able to finish primary school, only 17% have minimum reading skills, while just a fifth of them have basic maths competencies. Once they leave school, children face a precarious labour market and unstable jobs, just like their parents.

Natacha Obienne is only 21 years old, but she is already in charge of a small fish farm, a career that is usually pursued by men. As one of the many out-of-school women in her area, she was able to set up her own business after vocational training taught her the basics of financial management and entrepreneurship, as well as the practicalities of breeding fish.

She understood that fish feeding depends on the temperature of the water. If it’s well managed, a higher number of fish is produced. ‘I immediately applied everything I learnt’ she says.

The classroom she attended changed the course of her life and she hopes other young people will follow in her footsteps.

I no longer depend on my parents and I am financially independent

She’s not alone. Around 3,000 youths in Madagascar have been trained since the start of the UNESCO-backed programme, some of whom have set up their own business and achieved financial independence. Education was the best way to ease people's emancipation.

Like Emma Claudia, 25, who after her vocational training started a restaurant with just a baking tray and a saucepan.

What does my family think? They are surprised and amazed by my evolution because I haven’t been able to complete my studies. I don’t have any school diplomas.

While Natacha and Emma Claudia have been able to transform their world through education, millions of children out of school around the world are still denied that dream.

Discrimination against girls remains widespread and nearly one billion adults, mostly women, are illiterate. The lack of qualified teachers and learning materials continues to be the reality in too many schools.

Challenging these obstacles is getting harder as the world grapples with the acceleration of climate change, the emergence of digitization and artificial intelligence, and the increasing exclusion and uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

We resumed school a while ago and it’s been stressful. We are trying to retrieve what we lost during quarantine, the worst thing about not being in school is the number of things you miss. Learning behind a screen and learning in person are incomparable.

Aicha is lucky to be able to continue her education. Her country has the highest rate of out-of-school children in the world – 10.5 million – and nearly two-thirds are women. To compound the problem, Nigeria’s northern states suffer from the violence that targets education.

In Russia, too, Alexander and his school friends had to cope with virtual learning and the lack of interactions.

All Russian students were moved to online studying. Needless to say, it was a rough year for all of us, several friends were struggling with depressive moods. They were missing their friends and teachers. So did I.

To protect their right to education during this unprecedented disruption and beyond, UNESCO has launched the Global Education Coalition , a platform for collaboration and exchange that brings together more than 175 countries from the UN family, civil society, academia and the private sector to ensure that learning never stops.

Building skills where they are most needed

Crouched over a pedal-powered sewing machine, Harikala Buda looks younger than her 30 years. Her slim fingers fold a cut of turquoise brocade before deftly pushing it under the needle mechanism.

Harikala lives in rural Nepal, where many villagers, particularly women, don’t have access to basic education. Women like Harikala rely on local community UNESCO-supported learning centres to receive literacy and tailoring skills. In a country where 32% of people over 15 are illiterate, particularly women and those living in rural areas, education is the only route to becoming self-reliant.

I have saved a small amount. My husband’s income goes towards running the house, mine is saved. We must save today to secure our children’s future

Having access to a classroom is the first step to creating a better world for the student, the student’s children and the student’s community. This is a lesson that matters a lot to

Kalasha Khadka Khatri, a 30-year-old Nepali mother. She grew up in a family of 21, with no option to go to school. Two of her children didn’t survive infancy because she was unable to pay for medical treatment. After acquiring sewing skills at her local community learning centre, Kalasha can now provide for her family.

Harikala and Kalasha were able to learn their skills through the support of the UNESCO’s Capacity Development for Education Programme (CapED), an initiative that operates in some 26 least-developed and fragile countries. 

Reimagining the future of education

As the world slowly recovers after the COVID-19 crisis, 244 million children and youth worldwide are still out of school. And a 2022 survey by UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and OECD finds that one quarter of countries have yet to collect information on children who have and have not returned to school since the pandemic started.

Rebuilding how and where we learn requires policy advice, stronger education legislation, funds mobilisation, advocacy, targeted programme implementation based on sound analysis, statistics and global information sharing. Quality education also calls for the teaching of skills far beyond literacy and maths, including critical thinking against fake news in the digital era, living in harmony with nature and the ethics of artificial intelligence, to name a few of the critical skills needed in the 21st century. 

UNESCO  captured the debate around the futures of education in its landmark report from 2022 entitled Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education.

The Transformative Education Summit , that took place during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022, as well as the Pre-Summit hosted by UNESCO to forge new approaches to education after the COVID-19 crisis, address the toughest bottlenecks to achieving SDG 4 and inspire young people to lead a global movement for education. World leaders committed to put education at the top of the political agenda. UNESCO has been mobilizing and consulting all stakeholders and partners to galvanize the transformation of every aspect of learning. UNESCO launched a number of key initiatives such as expanding public digital learning, making education responsive to the climate and environmental emergency, and improving access for crisis-affected children and youth.

The two children sitting at their makeshift desk in Italy in 1950 could not have imagined what a modern learning space might look like or how a modern curriculum or the tools and teacher training to deliver it might have been thought out and shaped to offer them the most from education. They could not have imagined the global drive to ensure that everyone was given a chance to learn throughout life. The only thing that has not changed since the photo was taken is the fact that education remains a fundamental and universal human right that can change the course of a life. To the millions still living in conditions of poverty, exclusion displacement and violence it opens a door to a better future.

Explore all the work and expertise of UNESCO in education

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What the Future of Education Looks Like from Here

• Posted December 11, 2020
• By Emily Boudreau

After a year that involved a global pandemic, school closures, nationwide remote instruction, protests for racial justice, and an election, the role of education has never been more critical or more uncertain. When the dust settles from this year, what will education look like — and what should it aspire to?

To mark the end of its centennial year, HGSE convened a faculty-led discussion to explore those questions. The Future of Education panel, moderated by Dean Bridget Long and hosted by HGSE’s Askwith Forums , focused on hopes for education going forward, as well as HGSE’s role. “The story of HGSE is the story of pivotal decisions, meeting challenges, and tremendous growth,” Long said. “We have a long history of empowering our students and partners to be innovators in a constantly changing world. And that is needed now more than ever.”

Joining Long were Associate Professor Karen Brennan , Senior Lecturer Jennifer Cheatham , Assistant Professor Anthony Jack, and Professors Adriana Umaña-Taylor and Martin West , as they looked forward to what the future could hold for schools, educators, and communities:

… After the pandemic subsides

The pandemic heightened existing gaps and disparities and exposed a need to rethink how systems leaders design schools, instruction, and who they put at the center of that design. “As a leader, in the years before the pandemic hit, I realized the balance of our work as practitioners was off,” Cheatham said. “If we had been spending time knowing our children and our staff and designing schools for them, we might not be feeling the pain in the way we are. I think we’re learning something about what the real work of school is about.” In the coming years, the panelists hope that a widespread push to recognize the identity and health of the whole-child in K–12 and higher education will help educators design support systems that can reduce inequity on multiple levels.

… For the global community

As much as the pandemic isolated individuals, on the global scale, people have looked to connect with each other to find solutions and share ideas as they faced a common challenge. This year may have brought everyone together and allowed for exchange of ideas, policies, practices, and assessments across boundaries.

… For technological advancements

As educators and leaders create, design, and imagine the future, technology should be used in service of that vision rather than dictating it. As technology becomes a major part of how we communicate and share ideas, educators need to think critically about how to deploy technology strategically. “My stance on technology is that it should always be used in the service of our human purpose and interest,” said Brennan. “We’ve talked about racial equity, building relationships. Our values and purposes and goals need to lead the way, not the tech.”

… For teachers

Human connections and interactions are at the heart of education. At this time, it’s become abundantly clear that the role of the teacher in the school community is irreplaceable. “I think the next few years hinge on how much we’re willing to invest in educators and all of these additional supports in the school which essentially make learning possible,” Umaña-Taylor said, “these are the individuals who are making the future minds of the nation possible.”

Cutting-edge research and new knowledge must become part of the public discussion in order to meaningfully shape the policies and practices that influence the future of education. “I fundamentally believe that we as academics and scholars must be part of the conversation and not limit ourselves to just articles behind paywalls or policy paragraphs at the end of a paper,” Jack said. “We have to engage the larger public.”

… In 25 years

“We shouldn’t underestimate the possibility that the future might look a lot like the present,” West said. “As I think about the potential sources of change in education, and in American education in particular, I tend to think about longer-term trends as the key driver.” Changing student demographics, access to higher education, structural inequality, and the focus of school leaders are all longer-term trends that, according to panelists, will influence the future of education. 

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Education is Fundamental to Development and Growth

Elizabeth king.

Education is fundamental to development and growth. The human mind makes possible all development achievements, from health advances and agricultural innovations to efficient public administration and private sector growth. For countries to reap these benefits fully, they need to unleash the potential of the human mind. And there is no better tool for doing so than education.

Twenty years ago, government officials and development partners met to affirm the importance of education in development—on economic development and broadly on improving people’s lives—and together declared Education for All as a goal. While enrolments have risen in promising fashion around the world, learning levels have remained disappointingly and many remain left behind. Because growth, development, and poverty reduction depend on the knowledge and skills that people acquire, not the number of years that they sit in a classroom, we must transform our call to action from Education for All to Learning for All.

The World Bank’s forthcoming Education Strategy will emphasize several core ideas: Invest early. Invest smartly. Invest in learning for all .

First, foundational skills acquired early in childhood make possible a lifetime of learning. The traditional view of education as starting in primary school takes up the challenge too late. The science of brain development shows that learning needs to be encouraged early and often, both inside and outside of the formal schooling system. Prenatal health and early childhood development programs that include education and health are consequently important to realize this potential. In the primary years, quality teaching is essential to give students the foundational literacy and numeracy on which lifelong learning depends. Adolescence is also a period of high potential for learning, but many teenagers leave school at this point, lured by the prospect of a job, the need to help their families, or turned away by the cost of schooling. For those who drop out too early, second-chance and nonformal learning opportunities are essential to ensure that all youth can acquire skills for the labor market. 

Second, getting results requires smart investments —that is, investments that prioritize and monitor learning, beyond traditional metrics, such as the number of teachers trained or number of students enrolled. Quality needs to be the focus of education investments, with learning gains as the key metric of quality.  Resources are too limited and the challenges too big to be designing policies and programs in the dark. We need evidence on what works in order to invest smartly.

Third, learning for all means ensuring that all students, and not just the most privileged or gifted, acquire the knowledge and skills that they need. Major challenges of access remain for disadvantaged populations at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. We must lower the barriers that keep girls, children with disabilities, and ethnolinguistic minorities from attaining as much education as other population groups. “Learning for All” promotes the equity goals that underlie Education for All and the MDGs. Without confronting equity issues, it will be impossible to achieve the objective of learning for all.

Achieving learning for all will be challenging, but it is the right agenda for the next decade. It is the knowledge and skills that children and youth acquire today—not simply their school attendance—that will drive their employability, productivity, health, and well-being in the decades to come, and that will help ensure that their communities and nations thrive.

Read the full text of my speech to the Education World Forum here.

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Education Is the Key to Better Jobs

Subscribe to the economic studies bulletin, michael greenstone , michael greenstone nonresident senior fellow - economic studies , the hamilton project adam looney , and adam looney nonresident senior fellow - economic studies michael greenstone and adam looney, the hamilton project mgaalthp michael greenstone and adam looney, the hamilton project.

September 17, 2012

Few issues are more critical than putting Americans back to work. With the economy adding private-sector jobs for the last 30 consecutive months and the unemployment rate continuing to tick down, another concern has begun to dominate the discussion. Is it enough to find a job, or should we be more focused on the quality of that job? For those Americans who have been displaced in the workforce, what are their prospects of finding comparable employment in the 21st century, post-recession economy? After all, having a job—any job—does not guarantee a wage that will support a family. How, then, can we foster an economy that produces quality, high-paying jobs?

There may be a range of perspectives on the best way to move our economy forward, but one element essential to any answer is education. It may seem intuitive that more educated people earn more, yet the extent to which this is true is striking. A picture is often worth a thousand words, and the graph below illustrates this point.

The horizontal axis measures income while the vertical axis breaks up the income level by education level. As we move to the right toward higher incomes, we see that college graduates make up a bigger and bigger chunk of those earners. A few numbers help to underscore this. Those with only a high school diploma accounted for 39 percent of those who made between $20,000 and $30,000, but just 8 percent of those earning more than $100,000. In contrast, college graduates only accounted for 18 percent of the $20,000-to-$30,000 group and 75 percent of people earning more than $100,000, despite the population of these two educational demographic groups being roughly equal.

The message is clear—more education opens the gateway to better, higher-paying jobs. To put this into perspective, consider this:

• An individual with only a high school diploma is twice as likely to make under $40,000 per year than someone with a college degree.
• In contrast, an individual with a college degree is nearly nine times more likely to make over $100,000 than someone with only a high school diploma and 13 times more likely to make more than $200,000 per year.

On September 27th, The Hamilton Project will host an event focusing on the value of education, and opportunities to promote attainment and achievement in our K-12 system. We will release a series of economic facts about K-12 education in addition to three new discussion papers by outside authors— “Staying in School: A Proposal to Raise High School Graduation Rates,” “Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools,” and “Harnessing Technology to Improve K-12 Education.” Focusing on the new papers, three panels of distinguished experts will explore the value of stricter and better-enforced attendance laws, in coordination with other programs, to increase the high school graduation rate; the use of new evidence to demonstrate how targeted charter school methods could be successfully applied in public schools; and a new approach to evaluating education technologies to help speed the development of valuable new products.

The new Hamilton Project papers will be available on September 27th at 9:00 AM ET. For more information or to register for the event, click here .

Michael Greenstone  is the director of The Hamilton Project and  Adam Looney is its policy director. For more about the Project, visit www.hamiltonproject.org .

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The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world, working in 90 countries and committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Education is a human right, a powerful driver of development, and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and improving health, gender equality, peace, and stability. It delivers large, consistent returns in terms of income, and is the most important factor to ensure equity and inclusion.

For individuals, education promotes employment, earnings, health, and poverty reduction. Globally, there is a  9% increase in hourly earnings for every extra year of schooling . For societies, it drives long-term economic growth, spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion.  Education is further a powerful catalyst to climate action through widespread behavior change and skilling for green transitions.

Developing countries have made tremendous progress in getting children into the classroom and more children worldwide are now in school. But learning is not guaranteed, as the  2018 World Development Report  (WDR) stressed.

Making smart and effective investments in people’s education is critical for developing the human capital that will end extreme poverty. At the core of this strategy is the need to tackle the learning crisis, put an end to  Learning Poverty , and help youth acquire the advanced cognitive, socioemotional, technical and digital skills they need to succeed in today’s world. 

In low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in  Learning Poverty  (that is, the proportion of 10-year-old children that are unable to read and understand a short age-appropriate text) increased from 57% before the pandemic to an estimated  70%  in 2022.

However, learning is in crisis. More than 70 million more people were pushed into poverty during the COVID pandemic, a billion children lost a year of school , and three years later the learning losses suffered have not been recouped .  If a child cannot read with comprehension by age 10, they are unlikely to become fluent readers. They will fail to thrive later in school and will be unable to power their careers and economies once they leave school.

The effects of the pandemic are expected to be long-lasting. Analysis has already revealed deep losses, with international reading scores declining from 2016 to 2021 by more than a year of schooling.  These losses may translate to a 0.68 percentage point in global GDP growth.  The staggering effects of school closures reach beyond learning. This generation of children could lose a combined total of  US$21 trillion in lifetime earnings  in present value or the equivalent of 17% of today’s global GDP – a sharp rise from the 2021 estimate of a US$17 trillion loss. 

Action is urgently needed now – business as usual will not suffice to heal the scars of the pandemic and will not accelerate progress enough to meet the ambitions of SDG 4. We are urging governments to implement ambitious and aggressive Learning Acceleration Programs to get children back to school, recover lost learning, and advance progress by building better, more equitable and resilient education systems.

Last Updated: Mar 25, 2024

The World Bank’s global education strategy is centered on ensuring learning happens – for everyone, everywhere. Our vision is to ensure that everyone can achieve her or his full potential with access to a quality education and lifelong learning. To reach this, we are helping countries build foundational skills like literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills – the building blocks for all other learning. From early childhood to tertiary education and beyond – we help children and youth acquire the skills they need to thrive in school, the labor market and throughout their lives.

Investing in the world’s most precious resource – people – is paramount to ending poverty on a livable planet.  Our experience across more than 100 countries bears out this robust connection between human capital, quality of life, and economic growth: when countries strategically invest in people and the systems designed to protect and build human capital at scale, they unlock the wealth of nations and the potential of everyone.

Building on this, the World Bank supports resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. We do this by generating and disseminating evidence, ensuring alignment with policymaking processes, and bridging the gap between research and practice.

The World Bank is the largest source of external financing for education in developing countries, with a portfolio of about $26 billion in 94 countries including IBRD, IDA and Recipient-Executed Trust Funds. IDA operations comprise 62% of the education portfolio.

The investment in FCV settings has increased dramatically and now accounts for 26% of our portfolio.

World Bank projects reach at least 425 million students -one-third of students in low- and middle-income countries.

The World Bank’s Approach to Education

Five interrelated pillars of a well-functioning education system underpin the World Bank’s education policy approach:

• Learners are prepared and motivated to learn;
• Teachers are prepared, skilled, and motivated to facilitate learning and skills acquisition;
• Learning resources (including education technology) are available, relevant, and used to improve teaching and learning;
• Schools are safe and inclusive; and
• Education Systems are well-managed, with good implementation capacity and adequate financing.

The Bank is already helping governments design and implement cost-effective programs and tools to build these pillars.

Our Principles:

• We pursue systemic reform supported by political commitment to learning for all children. 
• We focus on equity and inclusion through a progressive path toward achieving universal access to quality education, including children and young adults in fragile or conflict affected areas , those in marginalized and rural communities,  girls and women , displaced populations,  students with disabilities , and other vulnerable groups.
• We focus on results and use evidence to keep improving policy by using metrics to guide improvements.   
• We want to ensure financial commitment commensurate with what is needed to provide basic services to all. 
• We invest wisely in technology so that education systems embrace and learn to harness technology to support their learning objectives.   

Laying the groundwork for the future

Country challenges vary, but there is a menu of options to build forward better, more resilient, and equitable education systems.

Countries are facing an education crisis that requires a two-pronged approach: first, supporting actions to recover lost time through remedial and accelerated learning; and, second, building on these investments for a more equitable, resilient, and effective system.

Recovering from the learning crisis must be a political priority, backed with adequate financing and the resolve to implement needed reforms.  Domestic financing for education over the last two years has not kept pace with the need to recover and accelerate learning. Across low- and lower-middle-income countries, the  average share of education in government budgets fell during the pandemic , and in 2022 it remained below 2019 levels.

The best chance for a better future is to invest in education and make sure each dollar is put toward improving learning.  In a time of fiscal pressure, protecting spending that yields long-run gains – like spending on education – will maximize impact.  We still need more and better funding for education.  Closing the learning gap will require increasing the level, efficiency, and equity of education spending—spending smarter is an imperative.

• Education technology  can be a powerful tool to implement these actions by supporting teachers, children, principals, and parents; expanding accessible digital learning platforms, including radio/ TV / Online learning resources; and using data to identify and help at-risk children, personalize learning, and improve service delivery.

Looking ahead

We must seize this opportunity  to reimagine education in bold ways. Together, we can build forward better more equitable, effective, and resilient education systems for the world’s children and youth.

Accelerating Improvements

Supporting countries in establishing time-bound learning targets and a focused education investment plan, outlining actions and investments geared to achieve these goals.

Launched in 2020, the  Accelerator Program  works with a set of countries to channel investments in education and to learn from each other. The program coordinates efforts across partners to ensure that the countries in the program show improvements in foundational skills at scale over the next three to five years. These investment plans build on the collective work of multiple partners, and leverage the latest evidence on what works, and how best to plan for implementation.  Countries such as Brazil (the state of Ceará) and Kenya have achieved dramatic reductions in learning poverty over the past decade at scale, providing useful lessons, even as they seek to build on their successes and address remaining and new challenges.  

Universalizing Foundational Literacy

Readying children for the future by supporting acquisition of foundational skills – which are the gateway to other skills and subjects.

The  Literacy Policy Package (LPP)   consists of interventions focused specifically on promoting acquisition of reading proficiency in primary school. These include assuring political and technical commitment to making all children literate; ensuring effective literacy instruction by supporting teachers; providing quality, age-appropriate books; teaching children first in the language they speak and understand best; and fostering children’s oral language abilities and love of books and reading.

Advancing skills through TVET and Tertiary

Ensuring that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities and supporting links to employment.

Tertiary education and skills systems are a driver of major development agendas, including human capital, climate change, youth and women’s empowerment, and jobs and economic transformation. A comprehensive skill set to succeed in the 21st century labor market consists of foundational and higher order skills, socio-emotional skills, specialized skills, and digital skills. Yet most countries continue to struggle in delivering on the promise of skills development. 

The World Bank is supporting countries through efforts that address key challenges including improving access and completion, adaptability, quality, relevance, and efficiency of skills development programs. Our approach is via multiple channels including projects, global goods, as well as the Tertiary Education and Skills Program . Our recent reports including Building Better Formal TVET Systems and STEERing Tertiary Education provide a way forward for how to improve these critical systems.

Addressing Climate Change

Mainstreaming climate education and investing in green skills, research and innovation, and green infrastructure to spur climate action and foster better preparedness and resilience to climate shocks.

Our approach recognizes that education is critical for achieving effective, sustained climate action. At the same time, climate change is adversely impacting education outcomes. Investments in education can play a huge role in building climate resilience and advancing climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change education gives young people greater awareness of climate risks and more access to tools and solutions for addressing these risks and managing related shocks. Technical and vocational education and training can also accelerate a green economic transformation by fostering green skills and innovation. Greening education infrastructure can help mitigate the impact of heat, pollution, and extreme weather on learning, while helping address climate change. 

Examples of this work are projects in Nigeria (life skills training for adolescent girls), Vietnam (fostering relevant scientific research) , and Bangladesh (constructing and retrofitting schools to serve as cyclone shelters).

Strengthening Measurement Systems

Enabling countries to gather and evaluate information on learning and its drivers more efficiently and effectively.

The World Bank supports initiatives to help countries effectively build and strengthen their measurement systems to facilitate evidence-based decision-making. Examples of this work include:

(1) The  Global Education Policy Dashboard (GEPD) : This tool offers a strong basis for identifying priorities for investment and policy reforms that are suited to each country context by focusing on the three dimensions of practices, policies, and politics.

• Highlights gaps between what the evidence suggests is effective in promoting learning and what is happening in practice in each system; and
• Allows governments to track progress as they act to close the gaps.

The GEPD has been implemented in 13 education systems already – Peru, Rwanda, Jordan, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sierra Leone, Niger, Gabon, Jordan and Chad – with more expected by the end of 2024.

(2)  Learning Assessment Platform (LeAP) : LeAP is a one-stop shop for knowledge, capacity-building tools, support for policy dialogue, and technical staff expertise to support student achievement measurement and national assessments for better learning.

Supporting Successful Teachers

Helping systems develop the right selection, incentives, and support to the professional development of teachers.

Currently, the World Bank Education Global Practice has over 160 active projects supporting over 18 million teachers worldwide, about a third of the teacher population in low- and middle-income countries. In 12 countries alone, these projects cover 16 million teachers, including all primary school teachers in Ethiopia and Turkey, and over 80% in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

A World Bank-developed classroom observation tool, Teach, was designed to capture the quality of teaching in low- and middle-income countries. It is now 3.6 million students.

While Teach helps identify patterns in teacher performance, Coach leverages these insights to support teachers to improve their teaching practice through hands-on in-service teacher professional development (TPD).

Our recent report on Making Teacher Policy Work proposes a practical framework to uncover the black box of effective teacher policy and discusses the factors that enable their scalability and sustainability.

 Supporting Education Finance Systems

Strengthening country financing systems to mobilize resources for education and make better use of their investments in education.

Our approach is to bring together multi-sectoral expertise to engage with ministries of education and finance and other stakeholders to develop and implement effective and efficient public financial management systems; build capacity to monitor and evaluate education spending, identify financing bottlenecks, and develop interventions to strengthen financing systems; build the evidence base on global spending patterns and the magnitude and causes of spending inefficiencies; and develop diagnostic tools as public goods to support country efforts.

Working in Fragile, Conflict, and Violent (FCV) Contexts

The massive and growing global challenge of having so many children living in conflict and violent situations requires a response at the same scale and scope. Our education engagement in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) context, which stands at US$5.35 billion, has grown rapidly in recent years, reflecting the ever-increasing importance of the FCV agenda in education. Indeed, these projects now account for more than 25% of the World Bank education portfolio.

Education is crucial to minimizing the effects of fragility and displacement on the welfare of youth and children in the short-term and preventing the emergence of violent conflict in the long-term. 

Support to Countries Throughout the Education Cycle

Our support to countries covers the entire learning cycle, to help shape resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. 

The ongoing  Supporting  Egypt  Education Reform project , 2018-2025, supports transformational reforms of the Egyptian education system, by improving teaching and learning conditions in public schools. The World Bank has invested $500 million in the project focused on increasing access to quality kindergarten, enhancing the capacity of teachers and education leaders, developing a reliable student assessment system, and introducing the use of modern technology for teaching and learning. Specifically, the share of Egyptian 10-year-old students, who could read and comprehend at the global minimum proficiency level, increased to 45 percent in 2021.

In  Nigeria , the $75 million  Edo  Basic Education Sector and Skills Transformation (EdoBESST)  project, running from 2020-2024, is focused on improving teaching and learning in basic education. Under the project, which covers 97 percent of schools in the state, there is a strong focus on incorporating digital technologies for teachers. They were equipped with handheld tablets with structured lesson plans for their classes. Their coaches use classroom observation tools to provide individualized feedback. Teacher absence has reduced drastically because of the initiative. Over 16,000 teachers were trained through the project, and the introduction of technology has also benefited students.

Through the $235 million  School Sector Development Program  in  Nepal  (2017-2022), the number of children staying in school until Grade 12 nearly tripled, and the number of out-of-school children fell by almost seven percent. During the pandemic, innovative approaches were needed to continue education. Mobile phone penetration is high in the country. More than four in five households in Nepal have mobile phones. The project supported an educational service that made it possible for children with phones to connect to local radio that broadcast learning programs.

From 2017-2023, the $50 million  Strengthening of State Universities  in  Chile  project has made strides to improve quality and equity at state universities. The project helped reduce dropout: the third-year dropout rate fell by almost 10 percent from 2018-2022, keeping more students in school.

The World Bank’s first  Program-for-Results financing in education  was through a $202 million project in  Tanzania , that ran from 2013-2021. The project linked funding to results and aimed to improve education quality. It helped build capacity, and enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in the education sector. Through the project, learning outcomes significantly improved alongside an unprecedented expansion of access to education for children in Tanzania. From 2013-2019, an additional 1.8 million students enrolled in primary schools. In 2019, the average reading speed for Grade 2 students rose to 22.3 words per minute, up from 17.3 in 2017. The project laid the foundation for the ongoing $500 million  BOOST project , which supports over 12 million children to enroll early, develop strong foundational skills, and complete a quality education.

The $40 million  Cambodia  Secondary Education Improvement project , which ran from 2017-2022, focused on strengthening school-based management, upgrading teacher qualifications, and building classrooms in Cambodia, to improve learning outcomes, and reduce student dropout at the secondary school level. The project has directly benefited almost 70,000 students in 100 target schools, and approximately 2,000 teachers and 600 school administrators received training.

The World Bank is co-financing the $152.80 million  Yemen  Restoring Education and Learning Emergency project , running from 2020-2024, which is implemented through UNICEF, WFP, and Save the Children. It is helping to maintain access to basic education for many students, improve learning conditions in schools, and is working to strengthen overall education sector capacity. In the time of crisis, the project is supporting teacher payments and teacher training, school meals, school infrastructure development, and the distribution of learning materials and school supplies. To date, almost 600,000 students have benefited from these interventions.

The $87 million  Providing an Education of Quality in  Haiti  project supported approximately 380 schools in the Southern region of Haiti from 2016-2023. Despite a highly challenging context of political instability and recurrent natural disasters, the project successfully supported access to education for students. The project provided textbooks, fresh meals, and teacher training support to 70,000 students, 3,000 teachers, and 300 school directors. It gave tuition waivers to 35,000 students in 118 non-public schools. The project also repaired 19 national schools damaged by the 2021 earthquake, which gave 5,500 students safe access to their schools again.

In 2013, just 5% of the poorest households in  Uzbekistan  had children enrolled in preschools. Thanks to the  Improving Pre-Primary and General Secondary Education Project , by July 2019, around 100,000 children will have benefitted from the half-day program in 2,420 rural kindergartens, comprising around 49% of all preschool educational institutions, or over 90% of rural kindergartens in the country.

In addition to working closely with governments in our client countries, the World Bank also works at the global, regional, and local levels with a range of technical partners, including foundations, non-profit organizations, bilaterals, and other multilateral organizations. Some examples of our most recent global partnerships include:

UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  Coalition for Foundational Learning

The World Bank is working closely with UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the  Coalition for Foundational Learning  to advocate and provide technical support to ensure foundational learning.  The World Bank works with these partners to promote and endorse the  Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning , a global network of countries committed to halving the global share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 by 2030.

Australian Aid, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Echida Giving, FCDO, German Cooperation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, LEGO Foundation, Porticus, USAID: Early Learning Partnership

The Early Learning Partnership (ELP) is a multi-donor trust fund, housed at the World Bank.  ELP leverages World Bank strengths—a global presence, access to policymakers and strong technical analysis—to improve early learning opportunities and outcomes for young children around the world.

We help World Bank teams and countries get the information they need to make the case to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD), design effective policies and deliver impactful programs. At the country level, ELP grants provide teams with resources for early seed investments that can generate large financial commitments through World Bank finance and government resources. At the global level, ELP research and special initiatives work to fill knowledge gaps, build capacity and generate public goods.

UNESCO, UNICEF:  Learning Data Compact

UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank have joined forces to close the learning data gaps that still exist and that preclude many countries from monitoring the quality of their education systems and assessing if their students are learning. The three organizations have agreed to a  Learning Data Compact , a commitment to ensure that all countries, especially low-income countries, have at least one quality measure of learning by 2025, supporting coordinated efforts to strengthen national assessment systems.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS):   Learning Poverty Indicator

Aimed at measuring and urging attention to foundational literacy as a prerequisite to achieve SDG4, this partnership was launched in 2019 to help countries strengthen their learning assessment systems, better monitor what students are learning in internationally comparable ways and improve the breadth and quality of global data on education.

FCDO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  EdTech Hub

Supported by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the EdTech Hub is aimed at improving the quality of ed-tech investments. The Hub launched a rapid response Helpdesk service to provide just-in-time advisory support to 70 low- and middle-income countries planning education technology and remote learning initiatives.

MasterCard Foundation

Our Tertiary Education and Skills  global program, launched with support from the Mastercard Foundation, aims to prepare youth and adults for the future of work and society by improving access to relevant, quality, equitable reskilling and post-secondary education opportunities.  It is designed to reframe, reform, and rebuild tertiary education and skills systems for the digital and green transformation.

Bridging the AI divide: Breaking down barriers to ensure women’s leadership and participation in the Fifth Industrial Revolution

Common challenges and tailored solutions: How policymakers are strengthening early learning systems across the world

Compulsory education boosts learning outcomes and climate action

Areas of focus.

Digital Technologies

Early Childhood Development

Education Data & Measurement

Education Finance

Education in Fragile, Conflict & Violence Contexts

Girls’ Education

Higher Education

Inclusive Education

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• Evoke: Transforming education to empower youth
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Collapse and Recovery: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Eroded Human Capital and What to Do About It

BROCHURES & FACT SHEETS

Publication: Realizing Education's Promise: A World Bank Retrospective – August 2023

Education and Climate Change flyer - November 2022

Learning Losses Brochure - October 2022

World Bank Group Education Fact Sheet - September 2022

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Global Education Newsletter - March 2024

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Five key debates for the future of education

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How do we best educate the students of tomorrow? What we teach our children – and how we teach them – will impact almost every aspect of society, from the quality of healthcare to industrial output; from technological advances to financial services. Our Global Agenda Council  experts join the debate to offer various visions of how education may evolve, and how governments, educators, employers and students will need to adapt to keep pace with the bewildering array of possibilities that will shape all of our futures.

The impact of technology

Rapid and dramatic developments in technology, the internet and online learning have outpaced projections from just a few years ago. And while the concept of internet-enabled study is hardly a new phenomenon, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) could be the spark that ignites significant changes in the way the world teaches and learns. That’s the view held by Professor Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, the online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT.

“We’re seeing a revolution in education as we speak,” says Professor Agarwal, “Technology is casting a spotlight on the innovation of massively open courses, of dynamic new study options that are available to everyone, regardless of background or location.”

Flexible, mass stream and open-source learning, he argues, will revolutionize the landscape of education. “In the future, you could go to university having done the first year of content online. You could then come and have the campus experience for two years, before going on to get a job in the industry where you become a continuous learner for the rest of your life.”

Professor Agarwal believes that this flexibility, combined with instant online feedback, will vastly improve learning outcomes. But this dynamism also extends beyond a mere expansion of study options.

The evolution of MOOCs will not only have a profound effect on how we teach in the future, but who we teach, says Professor Agarwal. MOOCs and their technology could be used to ‘virtualize’ education on a mass scale, delivering low-cost learning opportunities to developing countries that have skipped what he calls the “landline generation” – countries such as India and Kazakhstan, and Africa’s emerging economies where mobile phones are the primary form of communication. It is, he says, much easier to connect thousands of people to the internet and provide them with subsidized tablets, than to build hundreds of bricks-and-mortar campuses.

Professor Agarwal believes that open source MOOCs will adapt organically and democratically to the specific needs of the developing world. The use of the open source model will promote universal access to study materials, setting each MOOC in competition with itself as well as anyone else who wishes to challenge and modify its platforms.

“When something is this powerful and this game-changing, we need to be steering it as a non-profit venture, and even move beyond the concept of non-profit. It should be a platform that everybody can take, and evolve in the way they see fit. Why should any one organization be in charge of it?” he says.

Increasing globalization

Not everyone is convinced that access to MOOCs will prove to be a universal solution to the world’s education challenges. Technology and online learning have exponentially extended the reach of the humble classroom – but this is a trend that Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, President of the National University of Singapore, approaches with some caution.

In Professor Tan’s view, MOOCs distributed by well-established universities, while undoubtedly having a positive impact, fail to take into account the heterogeneous nature of education. And this is particularly true in the context of developing countries.

“There is unlikely to be a panacea in terms of a form of education which would meet different needs worldwide,” says Professor Tan. “Another disadvantage is that you could end up disempowering local education institutions.”

He envisions a more symbiotic approach: “For example, a MOOC provider could work with a number of universities in Africa or in India in order to customize or contextualize the learning materials. They could also work directly with the educators so that face-to-face components could be developed.”

As technology continues to replace routine jobs, education must adapt, says Professor Tan. Modular and online learning will play a significant role in this, but are no substitute for a holistic learning experience.

Outside of developed countries, he feels that branch campuses and partnerships with more established institutions can offer several benefits. “This kind of internationalization in situ provides a new and quite interesting way in which higher education capacity and quality can be built up in the developing world.”

The unification of standards – a question of governance

If education is set to become increasingly globalized, who should govern the models that are used in the future? And should we be looking to build a universal set of standards, one that can be co-opted by universities, industry, MOOCs and other online learning platforms?

Professor Tan warns against establishing such a hegemony. He argues that diversity of educational models, even within a given country, is something that should be encouraged: differentiation helps to equip educators with more resilient ways to adapt to the unpredictability of education in the future.

“I think adaptation is very important,” he says. “I would also say that experimentation actually allows us to learn more and more about what works and what doesn’t. We still don’t know enough about learning psychology and how people best acquire knowledge in a very rapidly-changing environment. I think trying to standardize that might actually have a negative impact on education.”

Dr Shirley Ann Jackson, President of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, envisions a new model – what she calls the “New Polytechnic” – of working and learning that is required in this “data-driven, computationally powered, globally networked era.”

Dr Jackson believes that the future of education will be a collaborative effort, with universities, businesses and governments working more efficiently together to “use and link the capabilities of advanced information technologies, communications and networking”.

“The way we connect and are connected by communication devices, medical devices, security devices and more has resulted in an explosion of data,” explains Dr Jackson. “Data is the new natural resource of the 21st century. The great challenge and opportunity is how to mine, manage, preserve and protect the data to ensure it is being harnessed to its full potential.”

“The aim of the ‘New Polytechnic’ is for educational institutions to work across disciplines, sectors and regions to harness the advanced technologies, the communications networks, and global interconnectivity to address our global challenges with energy security, water, health, environmental and national security, and the linked challenges of climate change and sustainability – animating and supporting strong economic systems and financial markets,” she says.

At Rensselaer, changes are already underway to realise Dr Jackson’s vision, which, she says, will equip the next generation with more intellectual agility. So while the internet itself will benefit from more structuring, students, she argues, must be taught to be adaptable. They must develop what she calls “multicultural sophistication” and they must have a global view.

Dr Jackson believes it is vital to harness this approach to build a strong innovation ecosystem.

The internet, Dr Jackson notes, is the new library. As with online platforms such as MOOCs, connectivity is required for students to reach their full potential.

“If 60% of the world is still not online then there is a question about addressing the great challenges of our time,” she says. “In emerging economies, which is where a lot of these challenges play out, if one wants to try to think about a data-driven approach, then one has to think about what barriers exist. Is there broadband access? Is there even electricity?”

In this manner, even the most advanced of educational ideas may be anchored to more prosaic facilities and needs.

A different approach: Will commoditization benefit education?

Of course, education should be seen as a need in itself. Technology has undoubtedly made the world a smaller place and, in the 21st century education is rightly considered a basic human right. Unfortunately, this classification doesn’t negate the need for financial backing; somewhere along the chain, educators, researchers and platforms must be funded.

Dr Jackson is somewhat cautious, however, about initiatives that bow to the needs of industry for specific skills training, without providing a broader education. She believes that education cannot purely be demand-driven, as these demands are subject to constant change; locking people into a specific skills framework will leave them poorly prepared to adapt to these changes.

Dr Mona Mourshed, Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company, believes a more radical approach to education must be adopted if the world is to keep pace with future demand for skilled workers. We are, she posits, migrating towards the curation of education – an environment of accelerated learning, based upon a modularized approach. She echoes Professor Agarwal’s theory that the students of the future will spend less time on traditional campuses.

“I think universities will no longer be four-year experiences,” she says. “Furthermore, I believe that vocational options will no longer necessarily be a two-year experience. We will be talking about eight to twelve weeks of experiences to attain particular skills. Then in the workplace, as you get ready to take your next step, you get the next module. This process can be regarded as a partnership between the employer and the education provider.”

Dr Mourshed believes that competency-based assessments to acquire what she terms “just-in-time skills”, acquired via informal learning, will allow people to access education wherever and whenever they like. This modularization will disrupt traditional attitudes towards current educational models.

Furthermore, Dr Mourshed’s vision of a modular, skills-based education suggests that industry – rather than traditional institutions – will play a greater role in driving standards, and thus funding education in the future. This will not stem from a desire, on the part of employers, to shape education policy; rather, it’s about responding to the need for individuals to have more diverse skills.

“Employers are changing the reality of education on the ground,” says Dr Mourshed. “They are giving jobs on the back of that, so I think it’s more the case that policy will follow these experiments.”

So, will universities disappear? “No, of course they won’t. But we will increasingly see a share of the student population opting for a very different education experience.”

Education, she says, must not stagnate if we are to get young people to a higher level of productivity at a faster rate than has traditionally been the case.

The changing, but recognizable, face of future education

Education is constantly adapting to societal needs, and this transformation will undoubtedly gather momentum in the years to come. Technology, MOOCs and industry will all play a unique role in this evolution, and while traditional institutions may face challenges in the future, it’s likely they will still form the bedrock of learning and influence how the world teaches and learns.

The answer, in Dr Jackson’s eyes, lies in finding a sense of balance. While the future she envisions for education will certainly be more technologically driven, it must still be so organic, interactive, and experiential as to allow students to mature and be creative, too.

“Technology is not going to replace students in a lab or classroom doing actual physics or biological science experiments, and studying living things,” she says. “It is not going to replace the socialization and the maturation that they go through as part of their studies.

“We do not want to take an existing narrow, restricted education model and simply replace it with another one. That’s something we should always remember.”

The Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 Report  is now live.

This is an extract from the World Economic Forum’s Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 report , drawing on interviews with GAC members Anant Agarwal, Tan Chorh Chuan, Shirley Ann Jackson and Mona Mourshed.

Authors: Professor Anant Agarwal is CEO of edX, the online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT. Dr Tan Chorh Chuan is Professor of Medicine and President of the National University of Singapore. Dr Shirley Ann Jackson is the President of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr Mona Mourshed is Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company.

Image: Students take notes from their iPads at the Steve Jobs school in Sneek August 21, 2013. REUTERS/Michael Kooren

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Education Is the Key to Success

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To the Editor:

Many people go to college and complete degrees in fields that they continue to have a great passion for throughout their lives. While some of those people are lucky enough to get a job in that field, others must sit and wait for their opportunity. Most of those waiting will look for small-time jobs or go on for more schooling.

Failing to find a job often makes these graduates feel unwanted or causes them to say, “My degree was a waste of time.” To them I say: First and foremost, your college degree is never a waste. Education is one thing no one can ever take away from you. Stay in your field, but expand your options.

I went to college to become a high school history teacher, but right now, I’m an academic adviser and recruiter at the college level, and I absolutely love it. Had you told me that I’d be doing this when I was younger, I’d have called you a fool. Now, I’ll never look back and hope to remain here until I retire.

Parents and educators, encourage your children and students to expand their reach and to never give up looking. Have them search in places and look for jobs that they’d never expect to get, or wouldn’t have applied for beforehand. Because at the end of the day, if you’re educated, someone somewhere will call your name. And just like me, you might never look back.

Henry Laboranti

Lackawanna College Towanda

Towanda, Pa.

A version of this article appeared in the August 29, 2012 edition of Education Week as Education Is the Key to Success

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Why education is the key to success 17 appealing reasons.

Education is The Key to Success | Why

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can not read and write but those who can not learn, unlearn, and relearn

It is a famous saying of Thomas Jefferson that education is the key to success. If you intend to know how education is the key to success, the answer is clear from the statement that education is a road map that takes into the realms of discovering new things, giving innovative ideas, and bestowing new skills while bringing change in life.

Here, “why education is the key to success?” is our topic. We will discuss the significance of education, the objectives and goals of education, and the reasons why education is the key to success in detail. Only those know that education is the true key to success who want to make the most of their lives.

Significance of Education

Education empowers individuals and equips them with the necessary tools that are super important for success. Without education, we are out of the way, we do not know the direction and we are in obscure situations. It lightens up the present and makes our future bright.

People mostly confuse the word education. They consider that education is got only from school, college or university. The institutions are only the sources of education that provide formal education.

Education in other words is the learning that starts from the cradle and ends till grave. Even a person who never gets an education from any institution or never attends classes can have an education. But how?

In spite of colleges, and schools that are considered the sources of education, we miss the important source of education which is experience. Like institutions, experiences are the most important source of education. Education is not what we get from books only, it also includes experiences, morality, attitudes and values etc.

Education means continuous learning. Good education and good knowledge are a guarantee to make us successful. Career prospects depend upon education. If we stop education after high school, there will be fewer opportunities. So, after college, we will find more opportunities for jobs as well as for business.

They want to go ahead in life and want to learn and grow by getting the appropriate education. They also know how education will open new and many doors. By reading this article, you will be able to find out how education leads towards success and that learning must be continued and should not be stopped.

Today in the digital era, we can get an online master’s degree and we can achieve anything we dreamt of. Along with this, we will attain a skill set that is surety for success. A person with a good and proper education and skill set will not face failure in life and his chances of success are increased.

Objectives and goals of education

Though we achieve all the qualifications we want yet learning is important. So what we can do to keep our learning continue, we can read journals, attend talks, workshops, and seminars, and even attend online webinars. The objectives of education include:

• To ensure that everyone has access to high-quality education, irrespective of their socioeconomic status.
• To encourage the growth of the mind and cognition while fostering creativity, problem-solving, and analytical thinking.
• To promote an approach to development and a fondness for continuous learning.
• To provide people with the necessary information and abilities for both personal and professional success.
• To encourage tolerance, empathy, and worldwide citizenship by promoting social and cultural aspects of knowledge.
• To empower people to take an active role in democratic societies and engage in civic life.
• To cultivate moral character, honesty, and integrity.to enable people to make wise choices regarding their health, well-being, and sustainable lifestyle.
• To make it easier for people to learn digital and technological literacy.
• To encourage diversity and give everyone access to equal educational opportunities, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic position.
• To encourage one’s development, self-assurance, and sense of purpose.
• To enable people to participate in economic development as well as creativity and prepare them for work.
• To promote entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation.
• To encourage awareness of sustainability and understanding of the environment.
• To promote interpersonal, communication, and teamwork abilities.
• To offer chances for physical and emotional growth through extracurricular activities, the arts, and sports.

In order to be specific about the area we choose, we can be in touch with those who can provide counselling to us in our selection of careers .

How Education is the gateway to achieving success in life? Reasons

Let’s find out how education brings success to our lives. know what are the appealing reasons.

1. Education builds confidence

Education builds confidence in individuals. When we obtain a good level of education, and when we know how to learn well and in a proper way, we feel confident in ourselves and in our abilities.

This is an additional self-confidence that can help us intensively in achieving our goals in life. People in positions and jobs are confident of their status and gain their employees’ trust and respect.

A fully confident person tries new things and knows that they will bring success and prosperity. But sometimes, if he does not get the desired result, he does not lose confidence and learns from his mistakes.

To be confident is good but keep in mind that we cannot know everything. Being open to learning new things and learning from others who are successful, is also important along with being assertive and decisive.

2. Thrive for the competition

If we want to be successful or successful businessmen or salespeople, our customers come without our choice, what we can do simply to go ahead of the competition. Although this is not easy yet education can do it for us. Education gives us an understanding of things as well as enables us to understand the mind of the customer.

For instance, if we get a degree in MBA, we can learn how we can boost our business and become successful. Moreover, if we specialize in marketing, we can be able to create unbelievable marketing strategies that can be shared on social media. This is a way of promoting our products or services to as many people as possible.

If we have more and more knowledge, the chances of our success will be increased. In the case of any difficulty or problem, we can find out its solution.

This can be done by learning all about it and the problem will be no more a problem for us. Those who do not consider education important, do not go forward to learn more. The likelihood, they get failure and do not bother to take the time to find out more.

3. Dreams become reality

In life, we have heard many times from people that they had wished to become this and that their dreams did not come true. They all the time expressed their regret and blamed that they should do much progress.

But this is not the case with education. Those who have completed their high school education, learn online , and specialize in a peculiar topic won’t forget that learning is a lifelong skill that will help in bringing dreams to reality.

4. Education ensures control over life

Life is ephemeral and we are not born to live forever. To make our life better and to change it can be in our control. So education can help us in changing our lives for the better one. Being a graduate, one can be able to become the manager of a firm instead of becoming an entry-level employee.

One can become a CEO or shareholder and get profits at the end of the month instead of getting a salary. With the changing passage of time, a new world would open up for us, and new, exciting opportunities will wait for us.

People can also get an opportunity to get an education from the university. We can also get sponsorship for our studies that can be tuition-free also and cannot create a barrier in our going ahead.

5. Life could be in the best phase

Education gives a better and deeper understanding of what is right, what is wrong, and what is fair and unfair as well. It helps us in building our reasoning and developing critical thinking skills. The skills are practical things that are utilized and applied to the situation in life.

Through the tool of education, we get aware of our rights and responsibilities as citizens. We can be able to make more balanced personal judgments and apply them to make the world a better place.

6. Make skilled to be employed

If we get an education at the college level, it teaches us how to manage our time, how to perform multitasking, and how to develop communication with people of different types, from class fellows to professors and from individuals to industry professionals.

These skills are important and integral to the future. If one has to go into the workplace or back into the workplace as a mature student, he will be more careful in getting interpersonal and organizational skills. These skills will help him shine at work and to cope with the challenges that he faces in the professional world.

7. Earning potential with education

It is seen that a college student earns more in his lifetime because he works with more reasoning and with a professional skill set. This happens only when one gets an education from school and college. It will also be more profitable for the student if he gets a tuition-free education.

For those students who cannot afford their studies and borrow from others, they can pay back the loan by developing their own earning sources. Along with this, there are many scholarships available for the students to cover the minimal assessment fees.

8. Its converts ideas into reality

Education is a thing that turns one’s dreams into reality. Being a college student, Mark Zuckerberg dreamed about a connected society and he invented Facebook to connect people with one another.

If one is unable to create a website, a college, or institution can provide a chance to connect with others and to change the whole world by making his dreams come true.

If anyone desires a higher salary, he must feel lucky. American Institute for Economic Research states that college students aged 25-32 earn $17,000 more every year than those who didn’t attend college, and 72% of millennials state that their degree has already paid them off. And those over 32 need not worry, they can also earn more. They are not over age and can find their dreams become one step closer to reality.

9. Confidence and staying power

A degree is certified proof of one’s intelligence. Even if one gets a certificate in a certain subject at the high school level, it is proof to show the outside world the talent and skills he has. This gives an in-depth knowledge of the subject and he can stick out a challenging scenario to the end.

He can get through the difficult time, the deadlines, and the time spent in front of the computer and madly writing the paper.  This builds confidence in himself and others to believe in him.

With all the dedicated time to studying the latest books, and papers, and learning through subjects, one can have an in-depth understanding of the subject matter. The others may have only general knowledge and do not know all these techniques for a prosperous future.

10. Education polishes financial intelligence

By getting an education at the college level, the student is able to manage his finance and can have sufficient cash in short term to bear the expenses of studies. He can do things like work out part-time and earn $100. This teaches the student the budgeting skills and economic understanding that lead him to get success in life.

11. Education channelize energy

Education helps to channel the energies. One wants to learn woodwork or business economics. He may want to learn how to sing a song or coding, he can get a chance to follow a curriculum from the beginning to the end and his energies are charged, and he achieves his targeted goals. When one learns a new skill or subject, it helps him feel more energetic, purposeful, and positive about life.

12. Education equips individuals with the skills that businesses seek

Education is an essential tool that provides students with the skills that companies are looking for. As you progress through a college degree, you learn how to manage your time, handle several tasks at the same time, interact with all kinds of people and acquire new skills that companies are seeking.

13. Education creates connections and encounters new individuals

College life is not limited to classes and peers, It builds networks with partners, alumni, and more. Joining an online community offers opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals, gain clarity on your ideas, and develop valuable communication skills. In the professional world, companies value those who can engage in online communities and effectively represent their brand.

Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education not a preparation for life; education is life itself

14. You will stay updated with evolving technologies

By enrolling in an academic program at Universities or colleges accredited university, you acquire in-demand technological skills sought after by hiring companies. Empowering your education, this digital experience becomes your pathway to success.

15. You will discover and define your career interests

Pursuing a degree helps you discover and refine your professional interests, career goals, and available opportunities. Higher education provides valuable resources, contacts, and networks to explore your chosen path. It gives you a clearer understanding of your capabilities and guides you in securing employment in your field after graduation.

16. Education enhances your time management abilities

While pursuing full-time education, you may combine various responsibilities such as work and managing household finances. The pursuit of education naturally sharpens your time management skills , a sought-after trait by global employers, ensuring a path to success amidst life’s multifaceted demands.

17. You will not be overlooked

In the past, rural societies had limited education, but now digital technologies are pervasive , emphasizing the need for basic high school qualifications in technology, communication, and global outreach. However, a high school degree is often just the starting point for entering the workforce.

Real-Time Examples

Here are some real-time examples of some influential educated personalities who got success through it.

Education is the movement from darkness to light

Oprah Winfrey:   She came from a poor family and brought up by her grandmother, became a successful American talk show host. She credits her success to her education and the opportunities it provided her.

Bill Gates: A college dropout but continued his education through self-study. He was a business tycoon and co-founded Microsoft and became one of the richest people in the world.

J.K. Rowling :   A British author and philanthropist who wrote Harry Potter book. She was a single mother living on welfare. Her education helped her develop the writing skills she needed to create a successful series that has sold over 600 million copies worldwide. It is translated into 84 languages.

Elon Musk : Getting multiple degrees in physics and economics, he has used his education to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs and business magnets in history. He is the CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX.

Malala Yousafzai : She is Noble Peace Laureate and an advocate for girls’ education. Her education gave her the knowledge and skills she needed to fight for what she believed in. 

Nelson Mandela : He was imprisoned for 27 years but continued to study in prison and earn a law degree. His education helped him become one of the most influential leaders in history. He became the first president of South Africa.

Michelle Obama : She belongs to a working-class family and got degrees from Princeton and Harvard. Her education helped her become a successful lawyer, author, and First Lady of the United States.

Warren Buffett : He is one of the most successful business tycoons and investors in history and has credited his success to his education. He got a degree in business from the University of Nebraska and became one of the richest people in the world.

Sheryl Sandberg : She is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Facebook and has credited her success to her education. She earned degrees from Harvard and Oxford and has used her education to become one of the most influential women in tech.

Mark Zuckerberg : He dropped out of college but later returned to earn his studies and got a degree from Havard. He is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Facebook. He is considered one of the most influential people in the world.

Education is a gift that not only expands minds but also broadens the horizons and it is an enrichment for life. It is helpful in breaking into new industries and boosting overall confidence. 

Although one has to study for long days in the library or at home working on a laptop can be tough, one learns a lot of life-boosting, powerful practical skills while doing assignments, that will be beneficial for them forever.

Acquiring education beyond high school is the gateway to success. In our interconnected society, where opportunities and expectations constantly rise, continuous learning is crucial for knowledge and performance.

Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the mean to the answer to all the questions

Anila Ibrahim

An educationist, web content writer, equipped with an LLB and a Master’s degree in English Literature, as well as a Master of Philosophy in Entrepreneurship. I have a comprehensive understanding of both the English language and the educational landscape. This academic background empowers Anila to deliver content that is not only informative but also thoroughly researched.

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Education is Key to Success: But What Does That Mean?

You would probably expect a life-long educator to write that education is key to success , right? But I’m going to dig deeper than that simple five word phrase — education is key to success — and explore the many dimensions of what it means to be educated and how we become educated .

I won’t go into my credentials here because you can find them on my ABOUT page, but I’ve been an educator for a very long time in many different roles and capacities.

And I want you to know right from the start that I will NOT try to convince anyone that a formal education is the answer to success for everyone! Education is key to success — YES — but there are many dimensions to the kind of education we need to succeed.

What is Education?

Some people immediately think of school when they hear the word education . But education is far more complex than school. Education goes far deeper than what you can get from elementary, secondary, or even university schooling.

My favorite definition of education comes from Wikipedia :

Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, habits, and personal development. Educational methods include teaching, training, storytelling, discussion, and directed research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators; however, learners can also educate themselves. Education can take place in formal or informal settings, and any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational.

What Does It Mean to be Educated?

Education is about discovering new things. It is the process of developing enough insight and curiosity to formulate questions, draw conclusions, and understand possibilities.

It’s about increasing your knowledge-base so you can influence and shape the world around you. You can educate future generations and bring about positive change.

Education is about life experiences. It’s getting to know the world around you, going on crazy adventures, and experiencing different cultures. It’s about socializing with people in a variety of settings and learning to appreciate others. It’s also about learning to treat ALL people with respect and dignity.

It’s about getting to know YOURSELF — your strengths, weaknesses, desires, dreams, and inner soul. It’s about developing positive attitudes, values, and morals that align with peace, happiness, and harmony.

Education is about taking responsibility for your own personal growth, developing essential life skills and coping skills to handle difficult times in your life, and unlocking the right doors of opportunity.

Of course, education means you also need to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic! (I don’t want anyone saying Mrs. Ballinger never mentioned school stuff in her article!) Plus, I better not forget to mention Social Studies and Science. The teaching and learning that occurs in schools are important aspects of education, too. This is your academic learning.

But I want to emphasize that far more learning takes place outside of a school building than most people realize. In fact, you might want to read my article about going on vacation during the school year because you’ll never worry about taking that vacation again!

How Do We Become Educated?

From the day you are born to the day you die, you are continuously being educated.

You are constantly learning how to interact with the great big world around you and the circumstances it throws at you.

From the time you start learning to sing the ABC’s until the time you walk across the stage to collect your diploma — you are learning. These are your academic years. While you may have 12 years of schooling in classrooms, you also have a lifetime of learning outside of a classroom.

Whether you are taking your first trip to the Emergency Room for a doctor to cast your first broken bone, or you are planning your wedding to marry the person of your dreams, or you are broken-hearted because you’ve just lost a parent — you are learning.

If you are dealing with a bully on the playground at school , or an adult bully in the workplace — you are learning how to deal with bullying (and hopefully how NOT to be a bully). You are learning that not everyone in the world is KIND and you will face adversity throughout life. But these experiences help prepare us for the next hardship.

When you meet someone with differing abilities (aka: disabilities) such as someone with Down Syndrome or Autism — you are learning. You are learning about their behaviors and how to relate to them. These life experiences will teach you far more than you can learn in a classroom.

If you decide to go to college to become a doctor or a lawyer, or you decide to go to trade school to become an electrician, or you decide to attend an ivy league university to become the President of the United States — you are learning.

When you retire from a long career and don’t quite know what to do with yourself, you have a LOT of learning to do. In fact, you have to do a lot of reflecting so you can redefine your personal growth, and find your passion and purpose all over again. I know this from experience! And here I am writing — something I’ve wanted to do my whole life!

Education is a Lifelong Process

I’ve always considered myself a lifelong learner and as I’ve navigated my way through the online world of blogging, I’ve proven this to myself. Education is a continual process that keeps the mind healthy and the soul happy.

Education does not stop. Whether you are in school or living life on an iceberg in Antarctica, your education continues. You are developing your skills, knowledge-base, and brain power.

Education provides knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

Together, they can turn dreams into realities!

The more knowledge you gain, the more opportunities will become available for you to achieve success in career, personal growth , and happiness.

So when you hear “education is key to success,” be sure to understand that education does not just mean formal schooling or a college degree. Learning comes from many sources and requires a lifelong commitment.

Education is Key to Success

Now that we’ve explored the meaning of the statement, education is key to success , let’s look at some benefits of being well-educated that will help you meet with success in life.

By developing your knowledge-base through diverse and multi-dimensional academic opportunities and life experiences, you are expanding your mind and opening doors to your future.

For example :

• Traveling across the country will give you great perspective about how people co-exist in different kinds of communities. You’ll learn first-hand about geographical and weather variations in the United States. You’ll be expanding your knowledge-base far beyond anything that could happen in a classroom. When will you be off on your next adventure ?
• Volunteering in your community will help you develop an awareness of what’s happening in your little part of the world and how you can promote positive change. You’ll learn about the politics of your community and the generational traditions of its people. Again, the first-hand knowledge you gain while being among the people can’t be matched in a classroom. You are learning via authentic community engagement .
• Enrolling in classes at the local community college will open your mind to opportunities and career choices. You may happen upon a new topic that interests you and decide to make a career change. The college experience alone will provide you with many learning experiences even outside of the classrooms. This is one part of your intellectual wellness .
• Choosing a new hobby will even help you develop knowledge and enhance your educational experiences. You’ll need to read directions, comprehend tutorials, talk with people, purchase supplies, and problem solve as you learn a new skill. You’ll learn about taking pride in your work and feeling accomplished when you finish a project. These emotions are important to your emotional intelligence.

Remember, ALL of these life choices. opportunities, and experiences are part of your education. You are developing knowledge daily.

Now let’s look at some specific benefits of education (both formal and informal) that have been proven to help you succeed in life:

• education promotes an awareness of the world around you;
• education is a resource for developing skills that help you advance in the world;
• education helps you develop the confidence and knowledge to achieve your dreams;
• education gives provides you with the ability to be financially responsible;
• education helps develop flexible thinking skills;
• education provides you opportunities to explore your creative thoughts and ideas;
• education helps build your social circle;
• education promotes an exchange of ideas:
• education is a source of self-identification;
• education promotes the development of your authentic self;
• education helps develop a nation of successful, intelligent people who can care for themselves;
• education builds confidence and resilience;
• education empowers you to thrive on competition and success;
• education ensures you have control over your life in the for of financial intelligence; 
• education increases your earning potential;
• education gives you opportunities to learn about conflict resolution;
• education helps convert ideas into reality;
• education supports a growth mindset ;
• education promotes morality and good citizenship;
• education improves critical thinking and problem solving skills;
• education makes it possible for intelligent debate;
• education leads to innovation;
• education develops risk-takers and curiosity;
• education lessens the challenges you will face in life;
• education promotes emotional intelligence .

Sharpen your skills, develop and maintain your determination, set big goals, and work hard until you meet with the success you want to have in life.

And remember, your academic skills and your life experiences make up your education!

Enjoy your journey in life and understand that education is key to success.

What is Success?

Let’s briefly discuss the meaning of success since we have used the term so much in this article. What exactly is success?

Lifehack , one of my favorite websites, has a great article that talks about 19 new definitions of success for the 21st century. These include such accomplishments as:

• always doing your best and believing you can;
• managing a healthy balance between work and home;
• understanding the difference between want and need ;
• learning something new everyday and continually improving yourself;
• setting goals and achieving them.

Maybe some of these ideas resonated with you. I believe success looks different for everyone. One size does not always fit all.

People who do TED Talks about the topic of success also believe that success can look different for different folks. These are some ideas about the meaning of success from those highly successful speakers:

• success is a constant journey of rise and falls, not a one way street;
• success is that tingle of excitement about what you do;
• success is sticking with what’s important through tough times;
• success is creating happiness and fulfillment in your life;
• success is living a life you can be proud of.

Let me also include the definition of success from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary : 1) the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame; 2) the correct or desired result of an attempt; 3) a favorable or desired outcome.

There are obviously many ideas about the meaning of success! I’ll leave you to determine what success means to you! Do you believe education is key to success? What does success look like to you?

Who Said Education is Key to Success?

George Washington Carver and Nelson Mandela have both written or spoken about the idea that education is key to success. Given their specific life circumstances, it is easy to see why and how they would believe education is key to success.

Education is the Key to Success by Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) has been credited with the concept that education is key to success. He rightly said, “From the poorest of countries to the richest of nations, education is the key to moving forward in any society.” He also said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

These are powerful words coming from a man in difficult circumstances. As a political leader and activist in South Africa, he wanted to see the people of his country prosper and change. He was tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Under those circumstances people needed to be educated in social justice.

Education is Key to Success: George Washington Carver

Similarly, George Washington Carver (1864-1943) believed that “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” He believed that education gives us all the knowledge we need to change the world. If we are educated, then wherever we go, or whatever we do, we can do it with much confidence and perfection. Thus, he has also been credited with the concept of education is key to success .

Education is the Key to Success Quotes

Many prominent historians, psychologists, educators, and others have written or spoken about the importance of education. Let’s look at a few more inspirational quotes about education is key to success .

“Education is the key to opportunity. It’s a ticket out of poverty.” ~George H. W. Bush

“Education is the key to self-development and empowerment.” ~Lailah Gifty Akita

“A good education is the foundation for a better future.” ~Elizabeth Warren

“Education is not a name of any degree or certificate that can be shown to others as a proof. Education is the name of our attitude, actions, language, and behavior with others in real life.” ~Barrack Obama

“The key to long-term success in life is your education and skills, your life experiences, and most of all, your personal character.” ~Robert T. Kiyosaki

“I believe the American dream is still alive and that education and entrepreneurship together are its key enablers. Through the years I have observed the power of this combination when the two forces work in tandem. Together they lead to personal success, business success, and societal success.” ~Ralph De La Vega

“Education is not the learning of facts, rather it’s the training of the mind to think.” ~Albert Einstein

Education is Not the Key to Success

There are also people who do not believe education is key to success. In some cases, those people are referring to a formal, higher education following the regular K-12 school years. And I absolutely agree that a formal, higher education is not necessary to be successful. However, I obviously believe that education is key to success in regard to the totality of formal and informal learning that equates to education . So I don’t always agree with people who say education is not the key to success.

I strongly believe I have made my case very clear that education is key to success, given that we are educated by our life experiences and mere existence in the world, as well as our formal schooling. Do you agree?

Final Thoughts: Education is Key to Success

Is education a key to success? I hope we can agree that education makes a difference in society as well in the personal lives of those who want a successful future.

I believe education is key to success because it allows people the opportunity to have a better future, plus develop the skills they need to follow their dreams.

Investing time and energy into taking your academic education seriously, as well as experiencing life to the fullest, are valuable measures for anyone who wants to reach their fullest potential and be successful.

I hope you have found value in this article and understand the importance of education — both formal and informal. I encourage you to remember to take time everyday to learn something new and appreciate every learning opportunity!

Love to All! ~Susan

Education is Key to Success: What Are You Doing Right Now that is Helping You Became Better Educated and How is it Contributing to Your Success in Life?

If you found value in my words, please consider sharing it on your socials by clicking the buttons below. Thank you for your continued support! It means so much to me!

Susan Ballinger is an award-winning educator, author, speaker, PTSD survivor, and advocate for ALL who has always been passionate about supporting and inspiring others in their personal growth. In her retirement years, she became the primary caregiver of her aging parents and developed an extensive knowledge-base about the elderly. You can learn more about Susan's professional work and compassionate nature by exploring her ABOUT page and connecting through her social media platforms.

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Why Is Education The Key To Success?

Education opens up the world. It is the key to being able to live a happy, healthy, and prosperous life.

Education opens up the world. It is the key to being able to live a happy, healthy, and prosperous life. Education equips us with the skills needed for success in today's world. It allows us to be prepared for what is to come. Education provides you with the opportunity to learn and grow as an individual. Today, an education is not just a means to a job. It's the vehicle that will help you shape your career and grow as an individual. There are many benefits to educational opportunities, ones that we can't afford to miss out on. A solid education will help better equip you for any challenges you may face in life. It is now proven that the investment in education is seen as a way to promote personal and professional growth. The investment in education will be seen as one of the best investments that can be made in life. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” - Nelson Mandela Education is a process that is vital to our personal and national development. It is through education that we are able to change and alter the world in which we live in. It is through education that we are able to continuously grow and learn, and even change the world. Knowledge is power, and the right kind of knowledge enables us to make informed decisions. Education is one of the most valuable things in this world. It serves to unite us, strengthen us, and help us learn why we are different from one another. Education has played a major role in all our lives, and it continues to do so. Education has the power to change people's lives. The knowledge that is gained can be used to shape your future and educate generations to come. It is the key that unlocks the door of opportunity. Education has always been an important factor in society, and it serves to unite and strengthens our country.

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"Education is the Key to Success"

I see education as the key to having a successful future. Many may say that what our teachers teach us in class may not be worth any of our time when really all they're trying to do is set us on the right path for the future.

                                                                 “My American Creed”

            What is my American Creed...my American Creed is that I believe that education is the key to success. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world..”(Nelson Mandela)           

          Why is education the key to success? “Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students”(Solomon Ortiz). I say education is the key to success because even though many may say that it does not prepare us for what we need in real life or everyday life. It gives us good social skills, work ethic and time management. Many come to the conclusion that what teachers teach us won’t be useful for us in the future or won’t benefit us for the specific career path that we would like to go down but it shows us what we are strong and excel significantly at which can help us to see what we are truly fit best for. “Education is the key to unlock the Golden door of Freedom”(George Washington Carver). Having an education puts us in the best place to have a secured future for ourselves. We can think outside the box to come up with productive ideas which can do us good. Even better it’ll place us with a good paying job.

          From experience my mom didn’t finish high school neither did she attend college she is 34 years old and has been with her job for 10 years. Recently she has gotten an opportunity to work at a higher stance with her company with a better pay. It took her 10 years to be able to show her company that even though she didn’t attend college and didn’t complete high school that she can make a difference for them. Even though it turned out okay for her she still struggles for many things because she could be way higher but because of the past it may be awhile before she gets another opportunity to step up to another level. Then looking at my stepdad who finished high school and graduated college with a degree is the manager of his company just after a couple years of working with them.

       Looking at with what our teachers teach at school even though right now we can’t really say what will help us we could be surprised when we meet face to face again with it in the future. While comparing both my mom and step dad with the set of education that they have it really shows me how having an education really is the key to having a successful future. With it you can accomplish more than you think and it can have a great impact on your life. So when in class don’t see what your teacher is teaching you as a waste of time look at it as setting you on the right path to making your future a walk in the park because what their doing is making things easier for you. 

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Education: The Key to Success

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Empowering individuals, fostering innovation and progress, contributing to societal betterment.

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The Most Effective Way to Become a Millionaire Is Still Through Education. Here's Why. The statistics tell the story that education is the most reliable way to financial success, regardless of what the influencer on social media tells you.

By Hanna Shanar • Dec 6, 2022

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In a world where attention is so valuable, yet so hard to acquire, business owners and influencers are constantly searching for means to reach more people and make more money. Social media has not only proven itself as a means to interact with the masses but also as a source of business for millions of entrepreneurs.

We've all seen certain influencers running ads on our feeds for Amazon FBA or Spotify stores. You might have even seen one of those dropshipping "gurus" trying to sell you a course. Every one of these influencers seems to preach the same story. "Why would you go to college when I can teach you how to make millions? After all, don't you want to make more money and retire early?" This may sound ideal and enticing, but can we take a step back to actually understand how indelibly dangerous this is?

Related: Benefits of a College Degree for Entrepreneurs

Why this message is harmful

As mentioned, millions of users can be reached through social media. Formally, anyone as young as 13 years of age is allowed on Instagram. A young, 13-year-old mind is able to look at all of these "rich and successful" influencers preaching about how college degrees are worthless. Does this have any effect on young, impressionable minds? We can imagine that it might, and actually, the data tell us that it does.

Below are links to two charts. The first has a chart that depicts the rise in social media usage over the last decade and is sourced from USA Today . The second is sourced from the Education Data Initiative . What do these charts tell us? Well, the usage of social media has more than tripled since 2010. There is also a positive correlation between the rise in social media usage and the decline in college enrollment. These events are not undeniably correlated, nor did I run a statistical analysis in order to determine the statistical significance. However, simply looking at the data and pairing this with what I see on a day-to-day basis on social media, has painted a story — a dangerous one.

Influencers on social media are teaching our youth that education is worthless. These same influencers flaunt their lavish lifestyles with multi-million dollar collections of jewelry, exotic cars, and other enticing incentives in order to lure in impressionable minds. Many of these influencers have the same goal: to make a sale. One way or another, these influencers want you to pay them for something they're offering. Whether that be a course or something else that is designed simply to make them more money and MAYBE help the person buying. Don't get me wrong, some of these mentors have valuable lessons to offer. However, I have seen time and time again some of these same influencers preach that "education is worthless, there is no point in a college degree." This is actually so statistically false that it pains me, so let's break this down.

Related: College or College Dropout? The Young Entrepreneur's Dilemma.

This Forbes article recently found that 84% of the top 400 wealthiest individuals in the world have, at a minimum, a bachelor's degree. In fact, 24%, almost one-fourth of this same group, have a bachelor's degree from an Ivy League school such as Harvard or Yale. Further, The National Study of Millionaires by Ramsey Solutions unveiled that 88% of millionaires have at least a bachelor's degree, and 52% of millionaires actually have a degree from a Ph.D. or doctoral program.

In summary, this tells us that almost 9 of 10 millionaires are college graduates, about 1 of 2 millionaires have earned a doctorate-level degree and that social media influencers claiming your degree is worthless are factually incorrect, and are statistically lying to you.

Let us even take this a step down and assume that you do not want to become a millionaire. This chart, which comes directly from a report by the Tax Foundation and was sourced from publicly available information from the Census, compares annual income brackets between those who have Bachelor's degrees and those who do not. The chart simply illustrates that 78% of individuals with an annual income of $200,000 have at least a Bachelor's degree, compared to only 9% of individuals who have attained that income level without formal education . Need I say more?

Related: Why the Myth of the College-Dropout Billionaire Is So Enticing

Our youth are quite literally being lied to by social media influencers on a day-to-day basis. They are being baited into thinking that formal education is not valuable and that it's easier to be rich without a degree . The truth of the matter is that income level is strongly correlated to an individual's education level. Not only that, but having a higher level of education is much more desirable in general. Formal education teaches us how to use our brains in order to innovate and problem-solve. This is part of the reason the majority of successful millionaires are all very well-educated. I believe that the value in education , to some degree, is not so much about what you learn, but about training your mind on how to function at a higher capacity.

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