Basic skills are missing: study unmasks "terrifying" educational gaps among young people

A new IFO study delivers sobering results: around two-thirds of young people worldwide have significant educational gaps. This is not only tragic in terms of individual fates, but also damages economic growth. In some countries, the proportion is over 90 percent.

According to an IFO study, many young people around the world lag behind the school requirements and have educational gaps. According to this, two thirds of young people do not achieve the basic skills that should be taught in school. “These are frightening numbers,” said IFO education expert Ludger Woessmann on a study by the Munich Economic Research Institute.

In Germany, the proportion is 23.8 percent, in Austria 24.6 and in Switzerland 21.9 percent, but in Estonia only 10.5 percent. “All in all, the world is missing out on economic output of over $700 trillion over the remaining century,” said IFO researcher Sarah Gust.

According to the study, young people with educational gaps range from 24 percent in North America and the European Union to 89 percent in South Asia and 94 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. In 101 countries the share is over 50 percent and in 36 countries even over 90 percent.

“The world is extremely far from meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” said Woessmann, director of the IFO Center for the Economics of Education. “This is so tragic because education is not only important for personal destiny, but represents the most important contribution to economic growth in the long term – and not roads, railways or fiber optic connections.”

For the new study, the IFO, together with Stanford University in California, brought individual student data from many international and regional performance tests in mathematics and natural sciences to a comparable global measurement scale. Basic skills are defined with the lowest competence level one of the international school performance test PISA. This includes, for example, solving simple and clear routine tasks – but not using the simplest formulas, deriving conclusions or being able to interpret results.