Learning poverty wastes young peoples’ potential, impacts future workforces and ultimately, erodes countries’ economic competitiveness.
Unfortunately, too many children are growing up without books. Only 2 percent of children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa are growing up with three or more children’s books in their homes. Parents and caregivers with low literacy levels may not be aware of how they can support their children’s learning with reading activities. In some languages, there are few (or no) books available, which means children can’t practice reading in a language they know. Even where books are available, they are often costly, making it prohibitively expensive for families. In some countries where textbooks are purchased by the education system, challenges with procurement and distribution can result in low-quality, high-cost books which don’t arrive in school on time (or at all).
These issues have lifelong consequences: seventy percent of children in low- and middle-income countries are unable to read and understand an age-appropriate passage by their tenth birthday (a situation we call learning poverty).
