Schools in poor countries are failing women

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The pandemic has been disastrous for children. According to the World Bank, school shutdowns have set learning back by months or even years. In many poor countries, however, the learning losses have been muted. That reflects failure rather than success. In these countries the quality of education is so bad that being out of school barely matters. A working paper by researchers at the Centre for Global Development, a think-tank, suggests that the problem is part of a worrying long-term trend in poor countries: even as more children have enrolled in schools, education quality has steadily declined or remained stagnant.