1.The poor performance of many public education systems on many dimensions of learning. The World Bank's 2018 review of the world's education systems suggest that many school systems are permanently failing organizations. This is true, worldwide - with the US, for example, spending in the US per student is higher than most other places in the world, and yet student outcomes are (at best) modest and, in some areas, poor (see here). Here is the opening paragraph of the World Bank review:

"In Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, when grade 3 students were asked recently to read a sentence such as "The name of the dog is Puppy," three-quarters did not understand what it said. In rural India, just under three-quarters of students in grade 3 could not solve a two-digit subtraction such as 46 - 17, and by grade half could still not do so. Although the skills of Brazilian 15-year-olds have improved, at their current rate of improvement they won't reach the rich country average score in math for 75 years. In reading, it will take more than 260 years. Within countries, learning outcomes are almost always much worse for the disadvantaged. In Uruguay, poor children in grade 6 are assessed as "not competent" in math at five times the rate of wealthy children. Moreover, such data are for children and youth lucky enough to be in school. Some 260 million aren't even enrolled in primary or secondary school."

They challenge that: (a) learning outcomes are low relative to both need and return on investment; (b) schools are failing learners - some 500+ million learners around the world have poor learning outcomes from the years at school ; and (c) systems are failing schools. They point to a variety of reasons for these poor outcomes, but key amongst them are: (a) the focus is on management of systems, not learning - there needs to be a relentless focus on learning, which will be a major shift in many systems; (b) key players do not always want to prioritize student learning - technology, teachers, buildings, money are seen as more important; (c) there are too few measures of learning - not too many; (d) inequality is too high - equity not just of access but equity in outcomes are key; and (e) political leaders who make policy do not show the patience needed for outcomes to be demonstrated. See World Bank Report here. It should be emphasized that, while this quotation relates to emerging economies, the same issues are seen world-wide.

A particular component of this challenge is literacy. In Canada (and many other developed countries), app. forty per cent of the workforce does not have essential skills needed to apply their technical skills and knowledge at globally competitive levels. Investing in upgrading essential skills would provide Canada with an opportunity to change the productivity narrative. While some investments are being made, we need to focus on investments with proven efficacy and outcomes. We also need to significantly improve the essential skills of all those at schools, colleges and universities - more and more of them will need higher levels of essential skills than they currently possess. There are a growing number of innovative approaches to this work - some captured in the Barbara Bush $7 million X-Prize for Literacy which is now entering its final phase - both online and mobile learning can help here too.