Commitment to Action

A commitment to action

Despite significant efforts by governments, teachers, and parents during school closures throughout the pandemic, children have lost, on average, 1.5 years of learning. As a result of two years of school closures in the region, learning outcomes may have been set back by more than ten years. Even before the pandemic, more than half of the sixth-grade students in Latin America and the Caribbean could not read a simple text.

If action is not taken soon, four out of five students could find themselves in this situation. The youngest and poorest have been hardest hit, and evidence from several countries shows greater losses at the primary level than at the secondary level (which also had very low levels of learning before the pandemic). In this context, there is no time to lose in recovering learning loss and making the necessary educational reforms to improve learning in the long term.

Learn about the essential pillars for the promotion of educational recovery and acceleration in the region:

From commitment to action

Image of the invitation to the Extraordinary Congress - in Spanish

The extraordinary meeting of Ministers of Education of Latin America and the Caribbean in Chile has provided an opportunity for the governments of the region to reiterate their commitment to invest in, strengthen, and recover what was lost in the pandemic, and to move forward with a sense of urgency and accelerate basic learning, which includes literacy and mathematics.

In Latin America, the percentage of children affected by learning poverty was 52% before the pandemic and this percentage has increased significantly due to prolonged school closures and the digital divide that reduced the effectiveness of remote learning.

"The World Bank highlights the objectives of the Santiago 2024 Ministerial Summit and we support the urgency of strengthening strategies that help to ensure that every child can read and understand a simple text, as reading is a prerequisite for all other learning. The fact that millions of children are still deprived of a quality and dignified education is unacceptable. Therefore, not only must more resources be invested in education, but we must also work efficiently to achieve this goal," said Jaime Saavedra, Human Development Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank.

The meeting, which took place on 25 and 26 January 2024, was convened by UNESCO and the Chilean Ministry of Education, and co-organized by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), the World Bank, ECLAC, and UNICEF. The objective of this event is to make progress in the formulation of public policies aimed at the reactivation, recovery, and transformation of education as accelerators of the educational goals of the 2030 Agenda.

See the testimonials of ministers and other attendees at the event. Video in Spanish.

Recovering and accelerating learning is crucial

In March 2023, education ministers and government representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean reiterated their commitment to promoting urgent educational recovery in the region after the losses recorded during the pandemic and to guaranteeing basic learning for all children.

Under the leadership of the Colombian Ministry of Education, the education authorities meeting in Bogotá discussed and agreed on concrete measures to ensure that all children and adolescents, especially those in vulnerable situations, develop the basic learning (reading, writing, mathematics, and socioemotional skills) that will allow them to develop their full potential and achieve full participation in society and continuity in their learning.

The meeting is part of the Commitment to Action on Basic Learning initiatives, an official mechanism promoted globally by the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID, the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and more recently in Latin America and the Caribbean by the IDB, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Secretariat of Education of Bogota. It seeks to get governments and the education community to take action to ensure, at the highest political level, that all children around the world acquire basic learning, and complements a regional commitment launched last year to protect and recover learning.

Read the press release e prensa

Learn more about our campaign #MiEducaciónNuestroFuturo

In the following interviews, you will glean the perspective of five experts working in the region to make the promise of education a reality.

The classroom, a critical space for accelerating learning

In May 2023, the city of San Miguel de Allende, in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, hosted a regional workshop that brought together education sector decision-makers and program implementers from different countries in the region. The workshop entitled: "A Classroom-Centered Approach to Accelerating Learning" was the setting for sharing evidence and knowledge, as well as for learning from the experiences in different Latin American countries and others outside of the continent, in order to design and implement effective continuing teacher education programs to improve the quality of teaching in the classroom.

This workshop in Mexico is a continuation of a series of meetings that the World Bank has been promoting since June 2022, for the benefit of students and the recovery and acceleration of education in the region. Even in March 2023, a regional event was held in Bogota, Colombia at which an agreement was reached regarding the Commitment to action on basic learning and its recovery.

In this video (available in Spanish), Emanuela Di Gropello, the World Bank’s Education Practice Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean tells us more about the conclusions of this regional workshop:

Another eight experts shared their experiences across the region, as well as good teaching and learning practices in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Alphabetization, a fundamental aspect of the ability to learn

Are there more effective methods than others for teaching reading? What does the evidence tell us about the different methods? How can pedagogical practices and educational management be aligned with the evidence? How can formative assessment be used as a tool for monitoring and targeting resources? What lessons can we learn from literacy policy initiatives that have achieved improvements in outcomes?

These are some of the questions explored at this congress, which aims to establish a space for dialogue and exchange on a highly prioritized and urgent topic for the region. With the participation of numerous educational authorities and technical teams from Latin American governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations, the event sought to share experiences related to literacy and strengthen a learning and exchange community to address the imperative need for children in the region to understand what they read.

Discover some of the conclusions of the participants in the following video (only available in Spanish):

Investing in the Quality of Early Learning to Foster Potential

San Salvador, November 29-30, 2023

Early childhood education is a fundamental pillar of efforts to recover learning, as providing high-quality education can improve children's development and learning trajectories. To support governments in their journey toward learning recovery and acceleration, the World Bank organized the event "Investing in the Quality of Early Learning to Foster Potential in Latin America" on November 29-30, 2023, in San Salvador.

The event aimed to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and strategies to improve the quality of early childhood care and education, thereby promoting better development and learning trajectories for children in Latin American and Caribbean countries. The event was attended by 30 delegations from 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including representatives from governmental and non-governmental organizations, the private sector working on early childhood education, global and regional experts, and leaders in cooperation, including UNICEF, UNESCO, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), and the Inter-American Development Bank.

In the following interviews, Emanuela Di Gropello, Manager of the Education Practice for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, and Magdalena Bendini, Senior Economist for the Global Education Practice in the region, reflect on the importance of investing in high-quality early childhood education.

There’s no time to lose

Latin America and the Caribbean are facing an education crisis, with 4 out of 5 students in the region not understanding what they read. The COVID-19 pandemic and school closures have exacerbated this crisis, mainly affecting the most vulnerable populations. National and international research confirm that this literacy crisis puts the educational trajectory of millions of children in Latin America at risk, as learning to read is fundamental to ongoing learning.

The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank presented a new report outlining the urgent challenges to be faced and educational priorities to be set, in order to address the most serious learning crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 100 years.

The 2022 results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) demonstrated the depth of the learning crisis for adolescents in the region. The assessment found, among other things, that three out of four 15-year-olds in the region cannot demonstrate fundamental mathematics skills, and one in two does not have the minimum reading skills. In the report, “Learning can’t wait: Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean from PISA 2022”, the two institutions analyze how to address this very worrying crisis. They also advocate for increasing and making investments more efficient, in order to accelerate learning results, close socioeconomic and technological gaps in educational systems, and ensure that young people are adequately prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Read more about the report here.

In the following video (only available in Spanish), Mercedes Mateo, Head of Education at the IDB and Jaime Saavedra, Human Development Director for Latin America at the World Bank talk about the most recent joint report: “Learning can’t wait: Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean from PISA 2022”. Through this link, you can also learn about a technical presentation on the regional results, as well as a discussion among experts.

The School Day Should Be Full-Time

Primary and secondary students in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have enough study hours within schools. The vast majority attend classes for only four hours, and according to comparisons between countries, none in the region reach 20 percent coverage of their students attending 6 to 7-hour educational days. This is a critical situation for children's learning, especially considering the recent results of the 2022 PISA tests.

Discussing the importance of full-time schooling in the region was the goal of the Interministerial Seminar on Full-Time Education, held in April in Brasilia. Delegations from nine countries in the region participated, co-organized by the Ministry of Education of Brazil, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Various strategies to strengthen full-time education in primary and secondary schools were addressed, and how this strategy contributes to ensuring better learning, successful educational trajectories, and broader benefits for students and their families.

"The Full-Time School Day has a positive impact. Many studies that will be discussed show the positive impact on learning, cognitive and intellectual development, socio-emotional development, reductions in teenage pregnancy, decreases in risky activities, and even on the labor participation of mothers," highlighted Jaime Saavedra, Director of Human Development for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, during the opening of the event.

Watch the full opening session of the Seminar here (in Spanish):

Remarks by Jaime Saavedra, Director of Human Development for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank. Video in Spanish.

The session "Dialogue with Education Experts," moderated by Emanuela Di Gropello, is also available. Video in Spanish.