How far is the world away from ensuring that every child obtains the basic skills needed to be internationally competitive? And what would accomplishing this mean for world development? Based on the micro data of international and regional achievement tests, we map achievement onto a common...

Ensuring that all children in the world obtain at least basic skills is paramount for world development. At least two-thirds of the world's youth do not even reach basic skill levels - i.e., the world is short of meeting the Sustainable Development Goal of universal quality education. This is...