On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, resulting in disruptions to education at an unprecedented scale. In response to the urgent need to recover learning losses, countries worldwide have taken RAPID actions to: Reach every child and keep them in school; Assess learning levels regularly; Prioritize…

At the height of nationwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 1.6 billion children were affected by school closures, causing the largest mass disruption of education in modern history. This joint report by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) presents new insights into children and young people's access to digital…

There are nearly 200 million lower and upper secondary age adolescent girls and boys out of school globally, and if current trends continue, another 825 million children will not acquire basic secondary-level skills by 2030. Global momentum to achieve universal primary education has placed increased demands on secondary education systems to serve…

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised huge concerns for the mental health of an entire generation of children. But the pandemic may represent only the tip of a mental health iceberg -- an iceberg we have ignored for far too long. For the first time, "The State of the World's Children" examines the mental health of children and adolescents.…

This is the first in a planned series of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports tracking progress on the child-related indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report highlights, through a data lens, the enormous task ahead for countries in meeting the 2030 Agenda for children. Through the development of projections to…

This is the executive summary of the first in a planned series of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports tracking progress on the child-related indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report highlights, through a data lens, the enormous task ahead for countries in meeting the 2030 Agenda for children. Through the…

The purpose of these guidelines is to provide methods for comprehensive education sector analyses to support the preparation and monitoring of education sector plans. They are an update of a 1999 document that has been used to support the preparation of approximately 70 Education Country Status Reports (CSR) in more than 40 countries. The goal of…

The gap between the levels of learning that education systems are providing and what children, communities and economies need, is growing. The breadth and depth of this learning crisis constitute the greatest global challenge to preparing children and adolescents for life, work and active citizenship. The lesson of the learning crisis is clear:…