From the article:
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. special envoy for education warned Wednesday that years of neglect have left 260 million children out of school and another 400 million functionally illiterate — and if a better way isn’t found to finance education more than 800 million young people will leave school without the skills to get a job in 2030.
Gordon Brown told a press conference that this represents half the world’s 1.6 billion children.
If action isn’t taken now, he said, the U.N. goal of ensuring that every child has a quality secondary school education by 2030 won’t be met, even in 2050 or in 2100.