아프리카ㆍ중동

In low- and middle-income countries, more than half the children cannot read and understand a short age-appropriate text by the end of primary school. This learning crisis threatens countries’ efforts to build human capital and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), undermining sustainable growth and poverty reduction. It is crucial for countries, with support of development partners including the World Bank, to aim to fully eliminate learning poverty, and make sure that every child can read. Learning Poverty shows the extent of the learning crisis by focusing on the share of children who don’t learn to read with comprehension by age 10. Children who are Learning Poor are not able to reach minimum proficiency in reading, either because of poor quality education or because they don’t have access to education at all. Higher rates of learning poverty, learning deprivation, or schooling deprivation indicates that the country is performing worse than comparison groups. According to the latest available data (before and during COVID-19 related school closures), 32 percent of children in Saudi Arabia at late primary age today are not proficient in reading, adjusted for out-of-school children. This is 20 percentage points lower (better) than the average for Middle East and North Africa (MNA) and 11 percentage points higher (worse) than the average for high income (HIC) countries.