'In school, but learning nothing'

Six out of 10 children and teenagers in the world are failing to reach basic levels of proficiency in learning, warns a hard-hitting report from the United Nations.

The UN describes the findings as "staggering" and representing a "learning crisis".

Much of the focus of international aid in education has been on the lack of access to schools, particularly in poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in conflict zones.

But this new research from the Unesco Institute for Statistics warns of the lack of quality within schools - saying more than 600 million school-age children do not have basic skills in maths and reading.

Huge divide

In sub-Saharan Africa, the research suggests 88% of children and adolescents will enter adulthood without a basic proficiency in reading.

And in central and southern Asia, 81% are not reaching an adequate level in literacy.

The report warns any ambitions for social and economic progress will be stifled without a literate and numerate population.

In North America and Europe, only 14% of young people leave education at such a low

level. But, the UN research suggests, only 10% of the world's school-age children live in these more affluent, developed regions.

"Many of these children are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities - they are sitting in classrooms," said Silvia Montoya, director of the Unesco Institute for Statistics.

She said the report was a "wake-up call for far greater investment in the quality of education".

This problem of "schooling without learning" was also highlighted by the World Bank in a report this week.

It warned that millions of young people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving an inadequate education that would leave them trapped in low-paid and insecure jobs.

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, introducing the report, said the failures in education for so many represented "a moral and economic crisis".

Researchers warned of pupils in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nicaragua who after years in school were unable to do simple sums or read simple sentences.

A basic level of proficiency in primary school was reached by 99% of pupils in Japan, but by only 7% of pupils in Mali, they said.

There were also wide gulfs within countries. At the end of primary school in Cameroon, only 5% of girls from the poorest families were at a level to continue with their education, compared with 76% of girls from wealthy families, the report said.