Quality education is critical for boosting human resources development, economic growth, and sustainable development, prompting many governments to invest heavily in education to promote their future competitiveness. Despite encouraging trends in public education investment and school completion in Southeast Asia, however, the learning outcomes gap remains significant.

There are multidimensional challenges to improving the quality of basic education and ensuring that all students acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills. While there are some cases of countries in the region and broader developing Asia successfully tackling these challenges, there are many other accounts of failure. Efforts to improve learning outcomes experienced a significant setback during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organized by ADBI, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, this conference featured new research papers on building basic education quality in Southeast Asia. ADB Chief Economist Albert Park and National Technology University’s Ng Pak Tee delivered keynote speeches. The Center for Global Development’s Justin Sandefur gave a special talk on education policy preferences in developing countries.

See more about this ADBI event here.