Globally, more children than ever are going to school and completing primary education and secondary education.

Yet, a growing concern persists that education is not yielding its fruits. Schools are struggling to equip students with the knowledge, capabilities, and sense of purpose required to navigate and contribute constructively to their lives and societies.

The distance of schooling and learning

In the classrooms, students' disengagement is a major crisis, driven by a disconnection of school learning and real world issues. Children and youth struggle to learn, with six out of ten students not acquiring essential skills such as reading, or applying knowledge in meaningful ways. The gap between schooling and lived experiences becomes more visible in lower-income contexts, where the effort of families to send their children to school does not see tangible results.

Systemic bottleneck: loss of teacher agency

Teachers have come under increasing pressure, and often find their experience and insights undervalued. Constrained by rigid curricula and prescribed agendas, teachers are given little space to respond to the needs they observe in their students and communities. As a result, a limited agency of teachers reinforces a similar lack of agency among students, contributing to a cycle of passive learning and disconnection of education from life. Breaking this cycle requires more integrated understanding of the educational process.

The root of the educational crisis: fragmentation

What is at the heart of the problem is fragmentation. Across much of the world, education offers a superficial experience that fragments understanding, students are exposed to disconnected pieces of knowledge that influences how they think and to broader fragmentation of society. Curricula are structured around separate subjects, with students accumulating information but not offered the opportunity to connect and integrate their knowledge. This reflect deep seated divisions, between:

• Theory and practice
• Material and spiritual
• Technical and social
• School and the community

As a result, knowledge remains fragmented, limiting the ability of students to think holistically, act purposefully, and apply what they learn to the realities of their lives.