GCRI · Society and Human Development
Education and capabilities
Education builds the capabilities people need to lead lives they value: literacy, numeracy, skills and the confidence to participate. Many children attend school without learning foundational skills, and crises close schools and push children out. This page sets out how learning happens and is disrupted, how access and learning are measured, and what evidence serves the education authorities and agencies responsible.
Education and capabilities on the record.
Education and capabilities: how the risk develops.
Learning inequality and societal opportunity. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Schooling is not learning
Enrolment has risen widely, but many children leave primary school unable to read a simple text. Foundational learning is the core gap.
Lost learning compounds
Children who fall behind early struggle to catch up, and school closures in crises widen gaps that persist.
Barriers differ by group
Poverty, gender norms, disability, displacement and language keep particular groups out of school or learning less.
Schools need protection
Attacks on schools, disasters and use of schools as shelters interrupt education; safe school planning reduces disruption.
Social protection and cohesion.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Social protection and cohesion
Education and capabilities · Urban ward 9 · Year 2
Coverage by quintile
Cohesion survey
| Trust in neighbours | 58 | 47 | ▼ 3 |
| Trust in local authority | 47 | 58 | ▼ 5 |
| Reported discrimination | 12 | 12 | ▲ 4 |
Education builds the capability to manage risk in every domain.
Findings are designed for the Evidence Brief series. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report tracks SDG 4.
- Learning disruption data.
- Evaluations of risk education.
How education and capabilities is modelled, measured and tested.
The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.
System model
The couplings between the systems in education and capabilities: signs of influence, a reinforcing and a balancing loop, and cross-links where stress jumps.
What is measured, and how well.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out-of-school rate | percent of children of school age | annual | UIS data | ESTIMATED |
| Learning poverty | percent of ten-year-olds unable to read and understand a simple text | per assessment | World Bank and UIS estimates | ESTIMATED |
| Minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics | percent of students | per assessment | SDG indicator 4.1.1 assessments | OBSERVED |
| School days lost to closures | days | per event | Education ministry records | REPORTED |
| Gender parity index in enrolment | ratio | annual | UIS data | Published statistics |
| Education spending | percent of GDP | annual | UIS and budget data | Published statistics |
Where the evidence comes from.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| UNESCO Institute for Statistics | Enrolment, completion, learning and spending | Open, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report | Analysis of progress on education goals | Public, UNESCO terms |
| International learning assessments such as PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS and regional assessments | Learning outcomes | Public results, terms per programme |
| Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack | Attacks on education | Public, terms to check |
| Comprehensive School Safety Framework resources | Safe schools planning | Public, terms per publisher (to check) |
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
Society and Human Development prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Education ministries | Where to focus on access and foundational learning | Profiles; programme evaluations |
| Education in emergencies agencies | How to keep children learning in crises | Disruption and recovery evidence |
| Finance ministries and donors | How much to invest and where | Spending and outcome evidence |
Outputs this topic produces
- Access and learning profiles by group
- Evaluations of foundational learning programmes
- Disruption and recovery analyses for crises
- Evidence notes for education planning
The questions experts ask.
- Who is in school, and who is actually learning?
- How do disasters, conflict and epidemics interrupt education, and what are the lasting effects?
- How does education change people’s capacity to prepare for and recover from shocks?
- Which interventions recover lost learning?
- How do skills systems prepare people for changing work?
Learning, disruption and capability.
Enrolment has expanded widely, but many children in school do not acquire foundational literacy and numeracy. Learning gaps follow income, gender, disability, language and location. Crises widen them: school closures interrupt learning and nutrition programmes, damaged buildings take time to rebuild, and the children most affected are usually those already behind. Learning losses can persist into adulthood as lower skills and earnings.
Education also builds resilience. Educated households tend to have better health, more diversified livelihoods and greater ability to use warnings and information. In the capability approach, education expands the real freedoms people have to choose how to live. Skills systems shape whether workers can adapt as technology and climate change alter labour markets.
Gender shapes these effects. In many settings girls are more likely to be withdrawn from school during economic stress or displacement, and to face early marriage, while boys may be pulled into work; recovery measures that ignore these differences leave gaps that persist into adulthood.
Evidence on learning.
Learning assessments
Standardised and household-based assessments measure what children learn; comparability across systems is limited.
School records
Enrolment, attendance and infrastructure data from education systems; quality varies.
Impact studies
Evaluations of remedial learning, school feeding and distance learning; effects depend on context.
Limits: out-of-school and displaced children are often missing from data, and short-term test results capture only part of what education provides.
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
- 01Social and behavioural scienceSurvey design for hard-to-reach groups · Qualitative and participatory researchApplied here
- 02Causal inference and impact evaluationEvaluating cash transfers · Effects of disasters on households · Education programme evaluationApplied here
- 03EconometricsPoverty dynamics with panel data · Price shock incidence · Inequality decompositionApplied here
- 04Spatial statistics and geostatisticsSmall-area poverty estimation · Vulnerability and hazard overlayApplied here
Where this page’s references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
What is learning poverty?
What is the capability approach?
How do crises affect education?
Does the platform design curricula?
Can remote learning replace schools in a crisis?
Why is education a risk topic?
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