Global learning equity and education: looking ahead

While major gains in access to education have grown in recent years, the quality of learning—especially among marginalized populations—will likely fall short of UN 2030 targets. Many factors interact with learning and an education system’s ability to adequately provide positive human development and wellbeing. Confronted with major social, economic, health and planetary changes in the coming decades, we expect to see significant transformations in educational systems worldwide to attempt to meet the enormous challenges of pervasive globaldisparities. In the present paper, such issues are considered in three historical timeframes: progress over the past half-century; the near-term future of learning systems; and an analysis of long-term projections of both obstacles and opportunities in the coming decades. What is both novel and essential in this time of major challenges, including with the COVID-19 pandemic, will be a renewed focus on the inequities in learning that are engendered at a greater pace than before, and that will likely be exacerbated in the future. Science and innovation in education will be the way forward, along with an enhanced search for improved learning and social good.