London. Ensuring every child gets a good education is the “civil rights struggle of our generation”, United Nations education envoy Gordon Brown said, ahead of launching a plan for the largest educational expansion in history.
Education not only provides children with a route out of poverty but also guards against the spread of extremism, the former British prime minister said as he called for a massive increase in investment.
“We will be betraying half our future if we do not take action,” he told a media briefing at the United Nations.
Under new global development goals agreed upon last year, all children should be receiving primary and secondary education by 2030.
But Brown said under current trends half the world’s children would still be either out of school or getting a poor education which would not begin to equip them with the skills needed for the labor markets of the future.
Young people denied school are more likely to end up victims of child marriage, child labor or fall into the hands of traffickers, he said.
Brown also warned of a “ticking time-bomb of discontent” among young people deprived of education and opportunities which would leave them “prey to extremist factions determined to exploit their discontent”.
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