Today, more kids and youth are in school than ever before. Yet 617 million – 1 in 3 – can’t read or do basic math. The World Bank calls the enormous lack of learning in school systems in low-income countries around the world the global learning crisis. 

In Nepal, hardly, 28 percent of the fifth-graders understand mathematical concepts, while 32 percent don’t even learn five percent of their course till Grade 5. According to the Ministry of Education Nepal’s Flash Report 2074 BS, 17.9% of the students enrolled in Grade 1 drop out of school before graduating Grade 5. That’s a lot of kids missing out on education before even completing the primary level of education.

This has enormous social and economic consequences for themselves, their families, and their communities. Not completing an education means kids are more likely to be poor, less likely to earn a living wage, more likely to enter into child marriages, and more likely to make poor decisions around health.

Among the students who drop out, the majority of them come from public schools, with low family income, and those who are living in the rural areas of Nepal.  Due to the learning crisis, these kids risk being trapped in the poverty many of them were born into.

The good news is that the learning crisis is a solvable problem. We know how to help kids learn. We also know that doing so gives them an opportunity to complete an education, break out of the poverty trap, and take their future into their own hands.

Our mission at Changing Stories Nepal is to end the learning crisis. Each year, we help hundreds of students learn to read, write, and do math through effective learning initiatives that teach kids the basic skills they need to become lifelong learners and complete an education. With this, we are on our way to build a Nepal where every kid learns