According to UNESCO, world leaders might not be able to raise global education standards by 2030 as promised following poor turnout in current trends.

UNESCO says current trends show that 30% of adults and 20% of young people will still be illiterate in poor countries in the next decade.

The report which examined the progress towards the “sustainable global literacy development goals” which the international community committed to achieving by 2030 showed that 262 million young people still are unable to access school, with the worst problems in sub-Saharan Africa.

Also, about 18% of children have limited access to school areas or education – and UNESCO’s report says this will fall to 14% by the end of the next decade, which will mean 225 million still out of school.

Progress Stalled?

A lot of factors contribute to the decline in the progress in global education standards. One of which is related to poverty – with only 4% of youngsters in low-income families staying on to the end of secondary school.

Another is the lack of trained teachers. The UNESCO report showed that the proportion of teachers with at least basic training has fallen in sub-Saharan Africa, so the problem is worse now than at the beginning of the century.

The growing population has also been a challenge in this region – and 54% of all the children without school are now in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 41% in the year 2000.

Across the world, the Unesco report says, by 2030 about 90% of adults will be literate. But in low-income countries, there will still be 30% of adults who are illiterate.

The UNESCO report also highlights the issue of school buildings being damaged by conflicts.

Liberia is among the least likely to provide education for all its children, with many school buildings being damaged by conflict and many teachers leaving the country.

There is also the issue of unfulfilled high-profile international pledges.

Promises made in 1990 to ensure access to primary education were not achieved by the deadline of 2000.

These were replaced by millennium goals for improving global education, which was missed by the 2015 deadline.

These were followed by the sustainable development goals set in 2015.

These promised that all children would be able to complete primary and secondary education by 2030 and following years of missing the target, this goal seems an unrealistic one according to the report.