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Policy Instrument:

Access to basic education

Keywords: Early Childhood Development; Human Capital Development; Children; Youth; Gender Equality

Definition

Access to Basic Education refers to access to education services that provides all learners with capabilities they require to become economically productive, develop sustainable livelihoods, contribute to peaceful and democratic societies and enhance individual well-being. This aligns with SDG 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. It encompasses a broad commitment to providing free, quality primary and secondary education for all children (Target 4.1) and supporting quality early childhood development to prepare children for lifelong learning (Target 4.2). It also aims to expand access to affordable vocational and tertiary education for youth and adults (Target 4.3), develop essential skills for employment and entrepreneurship (Target 4.4), and eliminate gender disparities to ensure vulnerable groups have equal educational opportunities (Target 4.5). Additionally, it contributes to building essential skills for sustainable development, for health and well-being, addressing gender disparities, and creating safe and inclusive learning environments for all learners. By enhancing access to education, we advance the collective achievement of lifelong learning and equitable opportunities, fostering sustainable and resilient communities.


Rationale

Globally, 251 million children and youth remain out of school, a reduction of just 1% since 2015, of which, 129 million are boys and 122 million are girls. More than half of all out-of-school children and adolescents in the world are in the sub-Saharan African region. Exclusion is exacerbated by social norms and poverty (UNESCO 2024).

Other reasons for exclusion include inadequate educational quality, distance to schools (particularly in rural areas), safety concerns, and early pregnancy. Many children, particularly from marginalized groups, face multiple forms of discrimination that prevent initial enrollment. Even those who do enroll frequently encounter barriers that lead to exclusion, such as low achievement, poor teaching, degraded facilities (often more severe in rural schools), overcrowded classrooms, household poverty, and health and nutrition issues.

For those already in school, the risk of exclusion remains high due to poor attendance, being over-age, low performance, socio-cultural discrimination, and malnutrition. Transitioning to lower secondary education presents additional challenges, as many children face high costs, remote school locations, or selection exam requirements. Secondary students are also at risk of exclusion due to pressures from paid work, rising education costs, or early and forced marriages. Children affected by poor attendance, over-age status, low academic achievement, or social exclusion are particularly vulnerable, which perpetuates cycles of poverty and restricts future opportunities (UNESCO 2015). While girls have historically faced significant barriers to accessing and completing education, recent evidence indicates that in some countries, boys are now at a higher risk of educational exclusion and underachievement (UNESCO 2022).

The proposed Education Policy Instrument aims to improve access to educational opportunities for children, adolescents, and young people, particularly those from marginalized, low-income, and vulnerable communities. Aligned with SDG 4, it is designed to ensure that access is inclusive, equitable, and high-quality while promoting lifelong learning opportunities.

In doing so, the instrument emphasizes supportive, safe, and inclusive learning environments that integrate foundational education with critical life skills, such as health, nutrition, and social-emotional learning. The full development of human potential requires synergetic investment in both health and education across the life course. A strong evidence base supports the most cost-effective strategies in these areas. In particular, key actions taken during the first 8,000 days of life—such as integrating health, nutrition and education programmes—are crucial for optimizing human capital development .

This holistic approach enhances not only cognitive development but also the well-being of learners, starting from early childhood and continuing throughout their education. Recognizing the importance of equitable education, the policy places special emphasis on reducing gender disparities and addressing the unique challenges faced by girls and other marginalized groups. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is also recognized as a critical phase, laying the groundwork for future success by fostering cognitive and social-emotional development, especially for children from underserved communities.


Key interventions

The combined interventions below ensure that education systems not only improve access and promote better learning outcomes but also help build resilience and support the well-being of learners, preparing them to thrive in a variety of economic, social, and environmental contexts:

  • Expanding access to basic education, including ECCE: Increasing enrollment and retention rates, particularly for marginalized groups.
  • Enhancing learning environments and infrastructure: Improving the availability of schools, classrooms, and essential equipment; developing accessible, safe, and inclusive physical environments, especially in rural areas.
  • Strengthening curricular relevance: Investing in gender-transformative, competency-based and life-skills-focused curricula that incorporate essential topics like health, nutrition, sexual and reproductive health and social-emotional learning.
  • Training and supporting educators effectively: Providing teacher training that equips educators to deliver inclusive, quality education that foster peace, gender equality and better health and education outcomes.
  • Promoting health and well-being: Building resilient education systems that promote learner’s physical and mental health and well-being.
  • Enhancing access to support services: Implement school meal programmes and establishing strong referral systems to connect learners with essential health and social services, including mental health support.
  • Increasing funding and resources for education: Boosting financial investments to ensure the sustainability and quality of education systems.

Children, adolescents and young people, families and educators, particularly those from low-income and marginalized communities.

Limits and risks

Access to education, safety, inclusion and intersectionality in education:

Health and well-being:

Climate change:

  • Risks: Climate related stressors, such as heat, wildfires, storms, floods, droughts, diseases and rising sea levels, affect education outcomes (Prentice et al. 2024). Climate change accelerates these challenges and has a direct impact on education and threatens to undo educational gains of recent decades (Sims 2021). Most low- and middle-income countries are experiencing climate-related school closures every year, increasing chances of learning loss and dropout. Over the past 20 years, schools were closed in at least 75% of the extreme weather events, impacting 5 million people or more (Marin et al. 2024). Since 2022, 400 million students experienced school closures from extreme weather (World Bank 2024a). Increasingly frequent natural disasters, including floods and cyclones, have led to the deaths of students and teachers and have damaged and destroyed schools (Pal et al. 2023). Even where schools are open, the consequences of climate change such as extreme heat impact the students’ capacity of learning (World Bank 2024a).
  • Contingency measures: Integrating climate change and sustainability topics in a transversal and interconnected manner and across all educational levels is crucial. This involves adapting curricula, strengthening teacher training to include comprehensive climate education, ensuring students gain awareness of climate challenges and develop skills to take action. Implementing a Green School Quality Standard can encourage sustainable practices in educational institutions. This includes establishing green governance committees involving students, teachers, and parents, conducting energy and resource audits, and strengthening ties with local communities to address environmental issues.
  • Resources:

Health pandemics and emerging diseases:

  • Risk: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented global school closure, with the peak disruption affecting about 1.6 billion learners (Ndejjo et al. 2023). New health threats (e.g., vector-borne diseases, infectious outbreaks) pose risk to the continuity of education and learning).
  • Contingency measures: During the process of education recovery, challenges that increased during the pandemic, such as mental health and gender-based violence need to be considered. Monitoring systems and tailored data collection for timely and context-specific data can support the set-up and implementation of adequate prevention and early intervention plans. Investment into hybrid and digital learning is critical to avoid disruptions in education.
  • Resources:

Social and economic factors:

  • Risks: Many countries permit child labour before the end of compulsory education. The share of 20- to 40-year-old women married before age 18 are 21% worldwide and 41% in Western and Central Africa. A second education chance is often denied to children who start work, marry or have children early. (UNESCO 2020).
  • Contingency measures: Conditional cash transfers have been shown to be effective in mitigating the impact of economic downturns on education by directly supporting families to prevent children from dropping out of school due to financial constraints. Community-based learning centres offer alternative pathways for learners at risk of dropping out, particularly in disadvantaged areas (UNESCO 2020). Other measures include non-contributory social pensions, food and in-kind transfers, school meals programmes, public works and fee waivers (World Bank 2018).
  • Resources:

Political instability:

  • Risks: Political instability, civil unrest and armed conflicts disrupt education by repurposing schools for military use or emergency shelters, deprioritizing funding, and creating unsafe conditions for students to access educational facilities.
  • Contingency measures: Enhancing the monitoring of attacks on education, and enforcement of the 2015 Safe Schools Declaration, which was endorsed by 102 countries by 2020, gives political support to protection of the right to education and continuation of education in armed conflict situations (UNESCO, 2020).

Use of online technologies and AI tools:

c) support access to basic services (education, health, water and sanitation and housing), productive assets, appropriate technology (prioritizing low-carbon options), information, integrated social and economic inclusion programmes, skill building (including technical assistance and extension services in rural areas), financial inclusion, decent employment creation and access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food (e.g.,home-grown school meal programmes) (SDG targets 1.4, 2.1 and 2.2), d) Contribute to addressing discrimination against women that leads to poverty, hunger and malnutrition such as differences in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity between men and women, absence of women equal rights to economic resources, as well as of access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws (SDG targets 5.a1 and 5.a.2), or contribute to recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate (SDG 5.4), and f) reach out to food consumers vulnerable to food insecurity and malnutrition, with a view of promoting information and facilitating access to healthy diets, including through education

SDG 3 - Good health and well-being

  • Target 3.7 - By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes

SDG 4 - Quality education

  • Target 4.1 - By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes
  • Target 4.2 - By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
  • Target 4.3 - By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
  • Target 4.4 - By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
  • Target 4.5 - By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
  • Target 4.6 - By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
  • Target 4.7 - By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
  • Target 4.a - Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
  • Target 4.b - By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries
  • Target 4.c - By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States

SDG 5 - Gender equality

  • Target 5.4 - Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
  • Target 5.5 - Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
  • Target 5.6 - Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences

SDG 6 - Clean water and sanitation

  • Target 6.3 - By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally

SDG 8 - Decent work and economic growth

  • Target 8.1 - Sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and, in particular, at least 7 per cent gross domestic product growth per annum in the least developed countries

SDG 10 - Reduced inequalities

  • Target 10.1 - By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average
  • Target 10.2 - By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status

SDG 11 - Sustainable cities and communities

  • Target 11.5 - By 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations

Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Art. 26

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – Art. 13, 14

Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) – Art. 23[3], 24 [2e, 2f], 28, 29, 32, 40[3b]

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – Art. 24

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) – Art. 10, 14[2d]

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People – Art. 14, 15[1], 17[2]

Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Sustainable development goals: Goal 4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

A/RES/72/233: Implementation of the second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017) – Para. 19, 44

Education 2030 –Incheon Declaration and Framework of Action

Recommendation on education for peace and human rights, international understanding, cooperation, fundamental freedoms, global citizenship and sustainable development that considers shifts in the global and educational landscape.

Joint UN statement on strengthening education, school health, nutrition and well-being (South-East Asia)

Transforming Education Summit Call to Action: Advancing gender equality and girls’ and women’s education in and through education

Youth Declaration on Transforming Education

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Art. 5(v), Art. 7

International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families Art. 12.4, 30, 43, and 45

Convention relating to the Status of Refugees Art. 22

Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities Art. 4.4

African Union Continental Strategy on Education for Health and Well-being of Young People

AU Strategy for Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment 2018-2028

Eastern and Southern Africa Ministerial Commitment: Fulfilling our promise to education, health and well-being for adolescents and young people

West and Central African Commitment for educated, healthy and thriving adolescents and young people